University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

From  the 

FRANCIS  P.  FARQUHAR 
EXPLORATION  LIBRARY 

Gift  of 

THE  MARJORY  BRIDGE  FARQUHAR 
1972  TRUST 


Ao 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 


THE  CROSS  PULL 

THE  YELLOW  HORDE 

THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

ANIMAL  STORIES 


An  ancient  buffalo  bull  had  left  the  herd  and  drifted 
down  to  the  flat.     FRONTISPIECE.     See  page  233. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE 
OLD  WEST 


.BY 
HAL  G.  EVARTS 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  BY 

CHARLES  LIVINGSTON  BULL 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,   BROWN,   AND  COMPANY 
1921 


Copyright,  1921, 
BY  LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved 

Published  October,  1921 
Published  serially  as  "  Old-Timer  " 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  by  J.  S.  Gushing  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

An  ancient  buffalo  bull  had  left  the  herd 

and  drifted  down  to  the  flat    .         .          Frontispiece 

"  Once  Manitou  looked  down  upon  plains 

made  dark  with  buffalo"       .         .         .    PAGE       4 

Great  white  cranes  stalked  majestically  in 
the  open  flats  .  '  .  .  .  .  .  "  61 

Here  the  bighorn  of  the  peaks  gazed  down  69 

The  old  bear  launched  forth  and  coasted 
for  two  hundred  yards,  the  cubs  following 
at  short  intervals  .  ,  .  .  .  "  137 

Three  thousand  antelope  had  crossed  out- 
side in  a  single  night  .,  ^  .  .  "  148 

The^moose  could  winter  in  the  heavy  drifts 

where  all  others  starved  .     '-..  *        ,        .       "       169 

The  great  brown  bear  moved  into  the  road 
and  reared  to  his  full  height  .  .  .  "  209 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE 
OLD  WEST 


THE  cook  fires  from  five  thousand  lodges 
spread  their  thin  film  of  smoke  above  the 
broad  valley  of  the  Musselshell.  Upstream, 
straggling  irregularly  along  the  base  of  the 
hills  that  flanked  the  far  side  of  the  bottoms, 
the  teepees  which  sheltered  all  that  was  left 
of  the  mighty  tribe  of  Crows  showed  in  minia- 
ture through  the  clear  air  of  the  hill  country. 
A  like  distance  downstream,  appearing  as  but 
a  tiny  toy  encampment,  even  streets  and 
regularly  spaced  tents  marked  the  temporary 
abode  of  the  soldiery.  A  half-mile  back  from 
one  shore  a  thousand  mounted  warriors,  the 
pick  of  a  fighting  nation,  injected  into  the 
picture  an  element  of  constant  motion  and 
clashing  hues  as  the  fretful  war  ponies  milled 
and  shifted,  the  glittering  lances  and  gaudy 
headdress  of  their  riders  weaving  ever  new 
and  colorful  patterns  against  the  green  back- 
ground of  the  hills.  Small  detachments 

1 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

swooped  in  aimless  charges  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  brandished  rifles  and  quavering  yelps, 
evidencing  a  lack  of  restraint  in  sharp  contrast 
to  the  stolid  quiet  which  prevailed  through- 
out the  formation  stationed  well  back  from 
the  opposite  shore,  a  field  battery  and  two 
troops  of  cavalry  drawn  up  in  orderly  array. 

A  slight  mound  reared  above  the  surround- 
ing bottoms,  the  pivotal  point  of  the  whole 
wild  scene,  and  here  the  dress  uniforms  of 
the  officers  bade  for  supremacy  of  grandeur 
against  the  savage  finery  of  Indian  chiefs 
and  marked  the  spot  where  solemn  confer- 
ence held  sway. 

General  McClain  had  ably  stated  the 
cause  of  the  whites.  The  keynote  of  his 
speech  had  revolved  round  the  pressing  neces- 
sity for  development  and  he  had  glowingly 
depicted  the  inestimable  benefits  to  be  derived 
from  the  white  man's  method  of  developing 
the  natural  resources  of  the  country.  The 
conference  had  been  long  and  the  sun  hung 
low  in  the  west  as  Red  Cloud,  war  chief  of 
the  mighty  Crows,  rose  to  make  final  reply 
for  his  people.  He  stood  for  long  with  folded 
arms. 

"Development!"  he  began  at  last.  "The 
white  chief  speaks  of  development.  So,  in 
my  youth,  spoke  the  men  of  the  three  great 
companies." 

£ 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

The  aged  chieftain  delved  into  the  misty 
past  and  touched  upon  the  halcyon  day  of 
the  fur  trade,  when  the  beaver  swarmed 
in  untold  millions  on  the  tributaries  of  the 
Arkansas  and  the  Platte,  of  that  day  when 
the  three  great  companies  —  the  American, 
the  Rocky  Mountain  and  the  Hudson  Bay  — 
had  struggled  for  control  of  that  vast  beyond 
which  lay  to  the  westward  of  the  Big  River 
and  fought  for  complete  supremacy  of  the 
Indian  trade;  of  the  time  when  the  emis- 
saries of  rival  interests  and  the  headmen 
of  the  roving  bands  of  free  trappers  had  prom- 
ised great  wealth  to  his  people  through  the 
rapid  development  of  the  fur  trade. 

"Where  are  the  beaver?"  he  demanded. 
"Show  them  to  me,  you  who  come  with  fresh 
promises.  The  whack  of  the  beaver's  tail 
upon  the  water  once  sounded  in  every  night 
camp  of  the  Crows  for  a  thousand  miles  each 
way.  Now  the  lakes  are  silent.  The  beaver 
is  gone  from  the  streams  and  the  fur  trade 
died  with  its  promises  from  lack  of  pelts  to 
satisfy  its  greed. 

"Red  Cloud  has  looked  long  upon  the 
working  of  this  word  with  two  meanings. 
The  Indian  has  come  to  know  development 
as  a  wonderful  promise  of  future  glory  which 
beckons  to  his  people  'as  the  phantom  lake  of 
the  desert  lures  the  thirsty,  always  just 

3 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

ahead  —  but  forever  beyond  reach.  The 
white  man  knows  it  as  an  excuse,  softened 
by  great  words,  as  the  sunset  beautifies  the 
bad  lands.  Under  its  cover  he  does  much 
that  is  wonderful,  working  for  his  favorite  God, 
this  Development  before  whom  he  bows,  but  in 
his  haste  to  reach  the  shores  of  the  phantom 
lake  he  destroys  much  that  he  might  better 
leave  and  which  he  never  can  replace.  As 
Red  Cloud  has  looked  upon  it  so  will  the 
children  of  the  white  chief  live  to  see  it. 

"Once  Manitou  looked  down  upon  plains 
made  dark  with  buffalo;  now  his  nostrils 
are  poisoned  by  the  reek  of  a  million  car- 
casses stripped  of  their  pelts  and  left  to  rot 
under  the  sun.  As  the  otter  and  the  beaver 
are  gone  from  the  streams  so  will  the  buffalo 
and  the  antelope  be  swept  from  the  plains, 
the  deer  from  the  valleys  and  the  bull  elk 
from  the  hills ;  even  the  last  bighorn  among 
the  highest  peaks  will  be  sacrificed  to  the 
greedy  God,  Development!" 

The  ancient  chieftain  of  the  Crows  gazed 
off  to  the  east  as  if  the  gathering  held  a  vision 
for  his  eyes  alone  to  read.  He  swept  an  arm 
in  the  direction  of  his  gaze. 

"There  is  the  yesterday  of  the  Indian," 
he  said.  Turning,  he  executed  a  similar 
sweep  to  the  west.  "And  there  the  to- 
morrow of  the  whites.  Red  Cloud  has  seen 

4 


•Once  Manitou  looked  down  upon  plains  made  dark 
with  buffalo. "     Page  4. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

it  written.  What  the  white  man  asks  he 
will  have.  It  will  always  be  so.  The  old 
days  are  gone.  They  have  followed  the 
beaver  to  return  no  more/' 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  one  of  the  oldest 
translations  in  the  world,  a  record  of  man's 
thoughts  transcribed  on  stone,  reads  thus : 
"The  good  old  days  are  gone  forever",  the 
sentiment  was  not  original  with  the  aged 
war  chief  of  the  Crows ;  but  he  knew  not 
that  his  observation  was  as  old  as  the  spoken 
word,  that  the  lament  for  the  good  day 
that  had  passed  had  been  the  portion  of  each 
generation  since  that  time  when  Adam  was 
excluded  from  the  Garden.  He  spoke  only 
what  he  felt,  —  and  of  what  he  knew. 

Red  Cloud  wheeled  abruptly  and  followed 
by  his  fellow  chiefs  he  turned  his  back  upon 
those  who  represented  the  new  order  of  things 
and  set  his  face  toward  the  shifting  mass  of 
mounted  warriors  which  typified  all  that,  re- 
mained of  the  old. 


Two  horsemen  topped  the  ridge  and 
stopped  to  look  back  at  the  scene  spread  out 
below  them.  A  slender,  many-colored  line 
twisted  for  miles  across  the  winding  hills  on 
the  far  slopes  of  the  Musselshell,  a  flashing 
serpent  writhing  interminably  across  the 
green.  An  hour  before  sunrise  the  Crows 
had  struck  their  teepees  and  started  on  the 
back  trail  for  their  ancestral  home  in  the 
Bighorns.  The  sweet  clear  notes  of  a  bugle, 
long-drawn  and  sustained,  floated  up  from 
the  bottoms.  The  soldiers  were  breaking 
camp.  The  sun  flared  forth  and  touched 
the  horsemen  on  the  high  ground  while  the 
valley  of  the  Musselshell  was  still  shrouded  in 
the  gray  of  early  morning  shadows. 

The  patriarch  of  the  hide-hunters  found 
nothing  inspiring  in  the  scene.  With  seventy- 
odd  years  of  experience  behind  him  he  viewed 
most  things  before  him  with  but  casual  con- 
cern. This  indifference  was  not  shared  by 
his  companion,  who,  notwithstanding  his 
studied  simulation  of  casualness  in  all  things 
—  a  trait  which  marked  the  manner  of  his 

6 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

elder  associates  —  was  alert  with  all  the 
natural  interest  of  his  seventeen  summers  for 
whatever  the  new  day  might  fling  across  his 
path. 

Perhaps,  as  he  turned  in  his  saddle  to  look 
back  upon  the  twisting  line  which  marked 
the  homeward  trail  of  the  Crows,  the  soldiers 
breaking  camp  in  the  bottoms  while  the  last 
notes  of  the  bugle  drifted  to  his  ears,  he 
partly  visioned  the  immensity  of  the  future 
toward  which  all  this  tended ;  a  vague,  half- 
formed  picture  of  the  end  which  every  present 
circumstance,  however  slight,  would  have  a 
hand  in  shaping.  He  groped  for  an  answer 
as  to  the  bearing  this  parting  of  the  ways  to- 
day would  have  upon  the  vast  to-morrow, 
and  suddenly  the  boy  wondered  what  part  he 
himself  would  play  in  shaping  it.  What  mark 
would  he  leave  ? 

It  did  not  come  to  him  couched  in  definite 
thought :  rather  it  was  an  emotion,  an  ex- 
pansion roused  by  the  dying  strains  of  the 
bugle  and  translated  into  vague  longing  for 
great  things ;  rare  moments  which  come  to 
exalt  the  lives  of  all  ambitious  young.  The 
impressions  coincident  to  such  moments,  vivid 
and  therefore  ineradicable,  leave  their  certain 
imprint. 

In  the  light  of  an  earlier  and  contrasting 
impression,  ingrained  by  reiteration  upon 

7 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

the  plastic  tablets  of  his  infancy  to  an  extent 
which  left  it  ever  near  the  surface  of  his  con- 
sciousness, it  was  but  natural  that  Mart 
Woodson  should  experience  a  recurrence  of 
that  thought  and  be  proud  that  he  had  been 
born  what  he  was,  —  a  native  American. 

It  occurred  to  him  in  no  such  trite  thought- 
group,  nor  even  as  a  patriotic  realization  of 
nativity  but  rather  in  the  more  personal 
sense  of  what  it  meant  to  him.  All  before 
him  and  to  either  side,  for  as  far  as  his  eye 
could  reach  was  his,  belonged  to  him  as  a 
birthright.  It  was  his  estate.  He  was  master 
of  himself  and  free  to  shape  his  own  destiny 
as  he  willed.  And  it  was  in  this  sense  that  it 
came  to  him  more  than  any  actual  conscious- 
ness of  nationality. 

That  he  should  dwell  appreciatively  upon 
these  things,  so  readily  accepted  by  others 
as  a  matter  of  course,  was  the  result  of  child- 
hood tales  absorbed  from  the  grandparents 
who  had  raised  him.  Always  their  speech 
had  harked  back  to  the  home  of  their  youth, 
and  the  boy  had  gathered  that  there  the  land 
was  granted  in  broad  tracts  for  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  privileged  few;  that  the  great 
mass  was  but  a  tenant  existing  through  the 
sufferance  of  others,  its  collective  life  largely 
predetermined  by  circumstances  over  which 
it  had  small  control.  This  picture  of  limita- 

8 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

tions  compared  to  the  wide  scope  of  his  own 
world  had  worked  to  build  up  in  him  an  appre- 
ciation of  the  fact  that  he  was  free  to  map 
out  his  own  course  as  he  chose.  He  could 
select  his  own  path  and  travel  it  with  no 
limitation  but  those  imposed  by  the  bounds 
of  his  own  ability,  —  which  is  really  what  it 
means  to  have  been  born  an  American. 

He  turned  to  his  companion  and  found 
old  Tom  North  gazing  abstractedly  in  the 
opposite  direction  from  the  scene  which  had 
so  inspired  the  youth.  The  great  moment 
passed ;  the  eager  questioning  light  died  out 
of  his  blue  eyes  and  he  headed  his  horse 
across  country  toward  where  the  outfit  was 
camped.  But  as  he  rode  he  missed  no  detail 
of  what  transpired  along  his  route,  everything 
viewed  through  the  eyes  of  youth.  He  had 
been  raised  among  the  hardwood  hills ;  maple 
and  hickory,  walnut  and  oak,  miles  and  miles 
of  standing  timber  stretching  endlessly  away 
on  all  sides  of  his  boyhood  home.  The  preced- 
ing year  he  had  drifted  west  to  hunt  out  of 
Dodge  and  so  had  come  to  know  and  love  the 
short-grass  plains.  Now  the  rolling  foothills 
of  the  sage  country  had  fastened  upon  him 
with  even  stronger  grip;  and  even  while  he 
felt  the  succeeding  spell  exerted  by  new 
frontiers  his  mind  traveled  ahead  to  the  great 
unexplored,  to  that  land  of  rumored  marvels 

9 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

about   which,   of   late,  many  tales  had  been 
afloat. 

It  was  said  that  the  three  great  river  sys- 
tems of  the  country  were  fed  by  the  snows  which 
fell  in  one  rugged  mass  of  peaks  and  valleys, 

—  the    high    country   for   which   each    tribe 
had  its  own  name  but  which  was  known  to 
all  as  the  Land  of  Many  Rivers.     Somewhere 
up  in  there  lay  the  country  of  the  fabled  Two 
Ocean   Water,   the   stream   which   split   and 
drained  both  ways.     He  turned  to  old  Tom 
North. 

"Do  you  believe  it  ?"  he  asked,  "what  they 
said  about  the  land  where  the  water  runs  three 
ways?" 

"It  may  be,  Son,"  the  old  hide-hunter 
assented.  "It  's  maybe  so.  I  've  always 
heard  it  said ;  but  the  whites  don't  believe. 
I  've  been  all  ways  from  it  myself  and  there  's 
many  a  river  comes  pouring  down  from  there 

—  and  them  rivers  runs  three  ways.     I  'm 
telling  you,  Son,  just  what  I  've  seen  myself. 
Some  day  I  '11  maybe  trail  one  to  its  head, 
and  when  I  do  I  'm  thinking  that  right  close 
somewhere  will  be  the  tip  prongs  of  the  other 
two." 

Their  route  teemed  with  life,  a  land  of 
meat  in  plenty,  an  inexhaustible  supply. 
On  all  sides  the  sage  hens  swarmed  in  untold 
thousands.  In  the  heads  of  the  gulches 

10 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

where  the  snow  lay  longest  in  the  spring  the 
dark  green  of  gooseberry,  currant  and  wild 
rose  stood  out  from  the  silvery  blue-gray 
of  the  sage  and  here  the  big  chickens  of  the 
foothills  congregated  in  immense  flocks  to 
feed.  Some  few  took  wing  as  they  approached 
only  to  pitch  down  after  a  short  flight,  but 
the  most  of  them  merely  moved  aside  to  let 
the  horses  pass. 

Three  coyotes  prowled  through  a  vast  dog 
town  while  the  villagers  barked  from  ten 
thousand  mounds  and  the  little  owls  bobbed 
with  false  cordiality.  Antelope  ranged  on 
every  hand,  some  feeding  in  twos  and  threes, 
some  in  droves  of  hundreds.  Every  broad 
bottom  and  every  grassy  slope,  every  side 
hill  and  each  rocky  bench  held  its  quota  of  the 
pronghorn  tribe. 

They  rode  out  along  the  rim  of  a  shallow 
box  canyon  and  below  them,  among  the 
stunted  cedars  on  the  floor  of  it,  a  band  of 
forty  mule  deer  grazed  within  easy  gunshot. 
A  string  of  big  gray  buffalo  wolves,  gaunt 
and  grim,  stood  on  the  skyline  of  a  low 
divide  and  gazed  bleakly  down  upon  the 
ascending  horsemen  before  vanishing  down 
the  opposite  slope. 

The  two  men  pulled  up  to  breathe  their 
horses  at  the  top  of  a  steep  pitch  and  from 
there  they  could  command  an  immense  stretch 

11 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

of  country.  Below  and  to  the  left  of  them  it 
opened  out  into  rolling  lowlands,  broad  flats 
and  valleys  intersected  by  shallow  washes  and 
barely  perceptible  waves  of  ground.  The 
boy  pointed  and  North  inclined  his  head, 
having  already  seen  the  thing  himself. 

A  fresh  drift  of  buffalo  moved  up  from  the 
south.  Great  dark  blotches  showed  against 
the  green  of  the  range  and  between  these  the 
countless  specks  grazed  slowly  ahead. 
Stationary  masses  indicated  where  thousands 
had  bedded  down.  Some  of  these  spread 
fanwise  as  the  two  men  looked  on,  expand- 
ing till  the  dark  blots  dispersed  and  gradually 
merged  with  the  scattered  feeders.  At  other 
points  this  maneuver  was  reversed,  the  dark 
moving  points  converging  on  a  common 
line  and  forming  into  a  compact  mass  as 
those  that  had  fed  to  repletion  grouped  for 
travel.  There  were  half-mile  breaks  in  the 
herd,  but  throughout  the  whole  irregular 
throng  there  was  a  steady  forward  drift  into 
the  north.  Extending  to  the  horizon,  the 
vast  horde  surged  on  over  a  twenty-mile  front. 

The  two  hide-hunters  rode  down  the  slope 
to  meet  it  and  long  before  the  vanguard  of 
the  herd  was  within  gunshot  Mart  Woodson 
had  unslung  the  heavy  rifle  suspended  be- 
neath his  thigh  by  rawhide  thongs-  There 
was  a  sudden  acceleration  of  the  forward 


THE  PASSING   OF   THE  OLD  WEST 

drift  and  the  earth  vibrated  to  the  rumble 
of  half  a  million  hoofs.  Up  from  the  south 
rolled  the  billowing  roar  of  black  powder  and 
the  boy  knew  that  some  other  of  his  outfit 
had  cut  into  the  herd  and  fired  the  first  shot 
of  the  kill.  The  one  report  was  multiplied 
by  scores  and  the  thunder  of  hoofs  increased. 

A  single  buffalo  topped  the  low  rise  of 
ground  before  them.  The  boy  shot  from  the 
saddle  and  the  ancient  bull  went  down  with 
the  crash  of  the  big  Sharp,  his  broad  skull 
drilled  through.  As  he  pitched  to  his  knees 
a  black  line  swept  over  the  crest.  North 
fired  into  it,  Woodson  shot  again  and  the 
mass  split  to  stream  by  on  either  side. 

Woodson  rode  with  it,  shooting  the  shaggy 
monsters  down  from  the  saddle.  Always 
as  one  drove  passed  him  there  were  fresh 
arrivals  from  the  south  to  replace  those  gone 
before.  Bands  of  frightened  antelope  dashed 
past  at  twice  the  speed  of  their  heavier  plains- 
mates.  The  bison  came  at  times  in  scattered 
bands,  again  in  massed  droves  of  thousands, 
and  for  three  hours  without  a  break  the 
vast  horde  streamed  past ;  a  hundred  thou- 
sand tons  of  red  meat  on  the  hoof,  a  quarter- 
million  sides  of  leather  for  the  taking.  And 
above  the  jar  and  rumble  of  the  hoofs  there 
sounded  the  deadly  roll  of  the  buffalo  guns. 

Then  the  drive  had  passed.  W'oodson 
13 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

looked  back  over  the  trail  of  the  run.  The 
green  range  was  dotted  with  dark  specks 
as  before,  but  these  were  still.  He  made 
out  a  dozen  riders,  the  men  from  his  own 
outfit,  moving  among  the  slain.  He  rode 
across  a  low  ridge  and  joined  Tom  North. 

"Eight  hundred  head  or  thereabouts," 
the  hide-hunter  estimated.  "Three  days' 
skinning  for  all  hands  —  if  the  weather  holds 
cool.  More  than  half  will  sour  on  us,  likely, 
if,  it  turns  off  hot.  You  start  slitting  'em 
out  while  I  bring  the  wagons  up." 

The  boy  opened  the  hide  of  one  animal  and 
moved  to  the  next,  merely  slitting  the  pelt 
and  laying  back  the  edges  an  inch  from  the 
meat,  to  be  peeled  off  later  by  teams  when 
the  wagons  should  arrive.  Off  across  the 
flats  he  could  see  men  similarly  engaged; 
and  as  he  toiled  he  heard  the  dull  roar  of  the 
buffalo  guns  far  off  to  the  north  as  another 
hide  outfit  got  in  its  deadly  work  on  the  herd. 


14 


Ill 


THE  spring  hunt  was  over.  Mart  Woodson 
viewed  the  scene  about  him  and  found  it 
good.  Ten  white-topped  schooners  and  a 
dozen  heavy  trail  wagons  were  drawn  up  in  a 
circle  round  the  camp.  At  a  little  distance 
the  horses  grazed  under  guard.  Massive 
piles  of  dried  hides,  folded  once  each  way, 
wrere  staked  as  so  much  wood,  and  for  a 
hundred  yards  round  the  camp  the  last  thou- 
sand hides  were  staked  flat  on  the  ground  to 
cure. 

A  stale,  strong  taint  pervaded  the  whole  air 
for  a  hundred  miles  each  way,  the  rank  odor 
of  carcasses  drying  under  the  white  glare  of 
the  sun.  On  every  flat  bench  and  in  every 
bottom  the  bodies  of  the  slain  lay  bunched 
in  scores  where  the  animals  had  been  snaked 
to  central  spots  by  horses,  their  hoofs  snubbed 
to  stakes  sledged  deep  through  the  prairie 
sod  and  their  hides  stripped  off  by  means  of 
chainhooks  and  teams.  Between  these  valleys 
of  the  dead,  scattered  far  and  wide,  ugly  blots 
marred  the  range,  the  bloated  remains  of 
buffalo  with  the  pelts  left  on.  A  portion 
of  each  kill  had  soured  before  the  hides  could 
be  peeled,  unavoidable  loss  when  occasional 

IS 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

days  of  fierce  heat  had  varied  the  usual  cool, 
crisp  run  of  spring.  These  bloated  ones 
spoke  of  wasted  ammunition  freighted  across 
great  distances. 

That  night  the  boy  lay  in  his  blankets  and 
gazed  up  at  the  stars,  his  body  weary  from  a 
strenuous  day  of  fleshing  pelts  but  his  mind 
alert  to  the  good  days  that  were  his  to  shape 
as  he  might  see  fit.  It  had  been  a  great  hunt. 
Seventeen  thousand  hides  had  been  har- 
vested for  division  among  a  dozen  men,  —  a 
two  months'  kill.  And  this  was  but  one 
small  spot,  a  pinprick  in  the  whole.  From 
the  Staked  Plains  to  Abilene,  from  the 
Arkansas  to  the  Platte,  and  from  Old  Fort 
Laramie  to  the  Musselshell  this  was  going 
on.  Throughout  a  million  square  miles  one 
hide  outfit  had  rarely  been  beyond  the  sound 
of  the  guns  as  another  made  its  kill. 

The  rasp  of  a  nighthawk  floated  down  to 
him  from  above.  The  coyote  chorus  exulted 
in  the  night,  the  weird  quavers  rising  from 
ten  thousand  throats  as  the  little  yellow 
wolves  led  their  pups  from  the  dens  and 
prowled  about  the  scene  of  slaughter  to 
voice  leering  thanks  for  easy  meat.  Occa- 
sionally  the  aching  wail  of  a  gray  buffalo 
split  through  all  other  sounds  of  the  night, 
commanding  a  vast  hush  till  some  other 
of  the  big  gray  hunters  answered. 

16 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Woodson's  mind  was  concerned  with  what 
he  had  best  do  next,  the  concern  rising  not 
from  any  possible  lack  of  future  occupation 
but  from  the  untold  variety  of  attractive 
alternatives  crowding  his  thoughts.  Hide- 
hunting  was  remunerative  and  to  his  liking. 
He  might  drift  southeast  from  his  present 
stand  and  run  cows  upon  the  range  that  was 
free  to  all.  The  fever  for  yellow  metal  had 
gripped  the  country  and  a  swarm  of  pros- 
pectors scoured  the  western  hills  for  gold. 
He  might  join  their  ranks  and  wrest  a  for- 
tune from  the  ground.  Back  in  the  hardwood 
hills  where  he  had  lived  there  were  trees  for 
the  taking,  millions  of  them  for  whomever 
would  wield  an  ax.  As  he  had  traveled 
westward  he  had  rarely  been  beyond  sound 
of  some  sawmill's  whirring  rasp.  Truly  this 
land  in  which  he  lived  was  a  land  of  plenty 
almost  past  belief. 

A  voice  spoke  from  close  at  hand,  mur- 
muring softly  as  if  to  avoid  reaching  a  single 
ear  of  all  that  sleeping  camp,  the  voice  of  his 
chief,  carrying  a  note  of  lament  which  the 
boy  found  difficult  to  associate  with  the  old 
hide-hunter.  Could  it  be  that  his  casual 
stare,  his  seeming  indifference  to  all  that 
transpired,  was  but  a  mask  assumed  to  cover 
some  deep  hurt?  His  words  had  expressed 
the  exact  opposite  of  the  thought  that  ob- 

17 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

sessed  the  mind  of  the  boy ;  for  the  meaning 
of  plenty,  once  the  line  of  actual  necessity 
is  crossed,  is  but  relative,  according  to  the 
viewpoint  of  the  one  who  pronounces  upon  it. 

"The  old  days  are  gone,"  Tom  North  had 
said.  "Gone  for  good  and  all." 

He  too  had  known  the  great  days  of  the 
fur  trade.  Millions  had  been  gleaned  yearly 
from  the  streams.  Then,  without  warning, 
the  beaver  had  disappeared.  It  was  freely 
predicted  that  a  few  years  would  suffice  to 
restore  their  old  numbers,  that  soon  the 
streams  would  once  more  swarm  with  fur. 
North  had  seen  the  time  when  a  man  might 
easily  average  a  score  of  valuable  pelts  for  each 
round  of  his  traps  and  now,  for  a  moment  in  the 
night,  he  allowed  himself  to  brood  upon  the 
fact  that  he  was  reduced  to  peeling  the  heavy 
skins  from  the  buffalo  for  a  dollar  a  hide. 

"This  killing  ought  to  stop,"  North  said. 
"It  ought  to  be  checked  up  some." 

The  boy  had  heard  this  expressed  before, 
infrequently,  it  is  true,  but  coming  from 
North  it  seemed  unreal. 

"Why  should  we  stop?"  he  asked.  "Are 
we  not  free  men  ?  Is  not  all  this  ours  to  draw 
from  as  we  choose?  It  brings  money  into 
the  country  —  the  sale  of  these  hides.  A 
free  country  for  free  men." 

"My  own  argument  of  a  few  years  past," 
18 


THE   PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

North  said.  "  Way  back  I  saw  the  time  when 
they  took  two  hundred  thousand  beaver 
pelts  a  year  from  the  Adirondack  Hills  alone. 
Take  the  country  as  a  whole  and  there  was 
fifty  million  dollars'  worth  of  beaver  shipped 
each  year.  There  was  talk  of  restricting 
the  catch  so  they  could  hold  them  at  that 
figure.  We  trappers  raised  the  cry  of  'A 
free  country  for  free  men.'  We  made  extra 
hard  drives  for  fur,  the  traders  backing  us 
up,  and  for  a  time  there  was  eighty  million 
dollars  coming  in  each  year  instead  of  fifty. 
Then  it  was  over.  The  fur  trade  died." 

"But  the  beaver  will  soon  come  back," 
Woodson  urged.  "Men  who  have  seen  those 
days  claim  that  they  will." 

North  grunted  his  disbelief  and  for  long 
minutes  he  was  silent.  The  boy  shifted  un- 
easily in  his  blankets. 

"Once  we  're  through  here  we  '11  make  a 
start  for  up  there  beyond,"  North  stated 
at  last.  "I  'd  like  to  have  a  look  at  it." 

Woodson  had  no  need  to  inquire  as  to  what 
particular  country  the  old  hide-hunter  had 
reference.  The  two  men  had  frequently  dis- 
cussed the  fabled  wonders  of  that  land  so 
recently  made  famous  by  Jim  Bridger's  im- 
possible tales. 

"We  could  swing  west  from  here  and  move 
in  from  the  north,"  the  old  man  said.  "Or 

19 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

again  we  might  quarter  southeast  and  work  up 
from  the  south.  There  's  a  range  of  peaks 
that  walls  it  in  on  the  east  and  which  men  say 
can't  be  crossed.  After  freighting  the  hides 
it 's  likely  the  south  trail  will  be  our  best." 

Woodson  was  content  with  this  first  inti- 
mation that,  once  the  hides  were  sold,  his 
chief  would  set  forth  with  him  for  the  mythical 
country  where  the  water  flowed  three  ways. 

At  daylight  of  a  crisp  morning  early  in 
September,  the  old  man  and  the  young, 
mounted  and  each  with  a  led  pack  horse,  rode 
from  their  night  camp  on  the  Roaring  Fork 
of  the  Green  which  they  had  reached  after 
many  days  on  the  trail. 

"This  is  one  of  the  three,"  North  said. 
"This  water  drains  through  the  big  canyon 
down  Arizona  way.  I  've  looked  down  into 
the  gorge  myself.  From  there  it  runs  into 
that  neck  of  the  sea  that  splits  up  into  Cali- 
fornia from  the  south.  I  stood  there  in  'forty- 
nine  so  I  'm  telling  you  what  I  know." 

He  pointed  to  the  divide  which  reared  to 
the  north  of  them. 

"  It 's  over  across  there  we  're  wanting  to  go. 
The  water  on  the  far  slope  sheds  to  the  west, 
the  same  as  this,  but  it  swings  to  the  north 
and  empties  at  the  far  corner,  better  than  a 
thousand  miles  from  where  this  runs  in." 

The  old  plainsman  had  taught  the  boy  to 
20 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

read  signs  as  others  of  his  years  are  taught 
to  read  the  printed  page,  and  now  he  mo- 
tioned him  to  take  the  lead  and  choose  their 
way.  Out  in  the  low  country  Woodson  had 
found  broad  paths  beaten  deep  in  banks  of  the 
streams  at  every  possible  crossing  point  where, 
for  centuries  past,  millions  of  hoofs  had  worn 
trails  which  converged  at  the  shallows  of  easy 
fords.  Here  in  the  hills  he  found  trails  rutted 
deep  by  the  hoofs  of  elk  and  mule  deer. 
*  An  elk  trail  branched  off  up  a  tributary 
creek  that  headed  back  toward  the  divide  he 
sought  to  cross.  He  turned  his  horse's  feet 
upon  it  and  held  on.  The  trail  was  dim  in 
the  more  open  stretches  and  at  times  played 
out  in  the  grassy  meadows  of  the  bottoms, 
but  always,  when  the  way  narrowed  and  the 
going  was  rough,  it  appeared  again  to  guide 
him  on  the  easiest  course.  The  way  mounted 
abruptly  and  he  found  that  in  the  hills  the 
game  trails  converged  at  the  passes  as  on  the 
plains  they  combined  at  the  fords,  sharply 
defined  through  deep  gorges,  swinging  away 
at  odd  angles  to  cross  jutting  spurs  when  the 
straight  course  was  blocked  by  some  sheer 
wall  of  rock,  threading  the  open  lanes  in 
the  matted  spruce  growth  of  down-timbered 
sidehills,  pointing  straight  to  passable  breaks 
in  the  crumbling  rims  and  at  last  leading 
out  into  the  lowest  saddle  in  the  high  divide. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

The  narrow  valley  of  the  Gros  Ventre  opened 
out  below  them. 

"The  Grovant,"  North  informed.  "It  flows 
west  to  the  Snake.  I  've  cut  the  Snake  down 
below  a  ways,  maybe  two  hundred  mile,  but 
never  as  far  up  as  this.  We  '11  follow  the 
Grovant  down  and  work  north  up  the  Snake." 

As  they  threaded  the  valley  of  the  Gros 
Ventre  the  boy  was  impressed  by  the  wealth 
of  food.  The  open  sidehills  were  clothed 
with  a  luxuriant  stand  of  grass  that  grew  to 
the  knees  of  the  horses.  Near  the  con- 
fluence with  the  larger  stream  the  country 
widened  out ;  great  stretches  of  open  country ; 
willow  swamps  marking  the  course  of  trickling 
spring  seeps  meandering  across  meadows  rank 
with  natural  hay;  grassy  parks  claiming 
a  full  half  of  the  aspen  hills  lifting  from  the 
bottoms.  A  vast  sagebrush  flat  flanked  the 
near  side  of  the  river  at  one  point  and  rose  in 
succeeding  tiers  of  flat  benches;  and  here 
they  had  a  touch  of  the  outside  plains,  for 
the  light  dots  that  moved  below  them  were 
antelope,  twenty  thousand  ranging  in  sight 
at  once  in  this  gem  of  a  valley  hemmed  in  by 
mighty  hills.  They  traveled  north  and  every- 
where there  was  grass,  feed  for  untold  thou- 
sands of  the  grazing  tribes.  Three  days 
after  crossing  the  watershed  from  the  Green 
they  made  their  night  camp  on  the  shores  of 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Jackson  Lake.  Even  this  far  spot  had  not 
been  immune  from  invasion  by  the  trappers  of 
long  ago.  Roving  bands,  sent  out  in  the 
interests  of  the  three  great  companies,  had 
penetrated  to  the  very  base  of  the  Tetons 
and  harvested  the  thickest  of  the  fur.  But 
the  trappers  had  gone  with  the  fur  trade 
into  the  annals  of  the  past  and  perhaps  not 
even  the  boot-print  of  a  white  man  had 
marked  the  lake  shore  for  twenty  years. 

First  the  quiet  beauty  of  the  hardwood 
country  had  seemed  all  that  was  wonderful 
to  the  boy.  He  had  passed  through  succeed- 
ing stages  as  the  limitless  horizons  of  the 
short-grass  plains  had  called  him,  and  later 
when  he  felt  the  spell  of  the  rolling  sage- 
clad  foothills.  Now  the  lure  of  the  giant 
ranges  claimed  him  for  their  very  own.  The 
mighty  Tetons  reared  their  crests  across  from 
him,  towering  five  thousand  feet  sheer  from 
the  placid  waters  of  the  lake,  their  lower 
reaches  clothed  with  dense  jungles  of  spruce 
except  where  wild,  tumbling  ravines  pitched 
down  from  the  peaks  and  tore  jagged  rents 
through  this  softening  garb  of  greenery. 
Above  the  trees  vast  sweeps  of  naked  rock, 
glacier-studded  and  capped  with  perpetual 
snow,  thrust  their  bald  pinnacles  to  the 
skies.  And  the  crystal  waters  of  the  lake 
seemed  bottomless,  the  inverted  reflections 

23 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

of  the  peaks  on  the  mirrored  surface  appear- 
ing to  plunge  their  ragged  points  as  many 
thousands  of  feet  below  the  water  line  as 
they  towered  in  actuality  above  it.  In  all 
Nature  there  is  no  sight  more  breathless, 
more  calculated  to  impress  man  with  his 
own  pitiful  insignificance,  than  this  first 
glimpse  of  the  Three  Tetons  across  Jackson 
Lake. 

The  bald  ridges  of  the  Hoback  and  the 
Gros  Ventre  hills  shut  the  valley  in  to  the 
south.  It  spread  out  to  the  east  in  rolling 
hills,  open  parks  and  sidehills  fringed  with 
the  heavy  green  of  spruce  and  silvery  clumps 
of  aspen.  Valleys  of  lodgepole  pine  swept 
away  toward  the  snow-capped  peaks  of  the 
eastward  ranges  for  which  old  Tom  North 
knew  no  name.  Miles  and  miles  of  beaver 
swamps,  meadows  rank  with  slough  grass 
and  broken  by  jungles  of  willow  and  birch 
flanked  the  northeast  shores  of  the  lake.  Be- 
yond it  to  the  north  the  Continental  Divide 
spread  a  barrier  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach. 
West,  the  Grand  Tetons  stood  guard  over 
this  basin  rimmed  in  by  lofty  peaks. 

Mart  Woodson  looked  first  on  the  high 
country  during  the  season  which  the  hill 
tribes  know  as  the  Short  Blue  Moon.  The 
mule-deer  bucks  had  shed  their  garb  of  the 
season  past  and  now  stepped  forth  in  new 

24 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

short-haired  coats  of  sleek  blue-gray.  The 
streams  had  passed  the  muddy  summer 
flood  tide  swelled  by  melting  drifts  and  now 
carried  no  clouding  sediments  in  their  flow, 
their  waters  a  deep  blue-green.  A  bluish 
haze  hung  in  the  hills  and  filtered  a  silvery 
luster  over  distant  spruce  slopes.  Open  ridges 
thrust  their  slender  tongues  back  through 
stands  of  heavy  timber,  their  crests  capped 
with  the  pale  blue-gray  sage  of  the  higher 
hills.  The  mass  of  far-off  ranges  loomed  deep 
blue,  outlined  against  the  paler  turquoise 
blue  of  the  autumn  sky;  the  Short  Blue 
Moon  of  the  hill  country. 

Myriads  of  waterfowl,  hatched  in  the  depths 
of  the  beaver  swamps,  were  being  marshaled 
by  their  elders  into  great  flocks  preparatory 
to  the  southward  migration  which  would 
set  in  with  the  cold  days  of  fall.  Thousands 
of  big  gray  geese  floated  on  the  surface  of 
the  lake.  A  dozen  varieties  of  ducks  buzzed 
in  vast  swarms.  Where  the  swamp  merged 
with  the  parent  body  of  water  a  hundred 
whooping  cranes  waded  in  the  shallows, 
standing  five  feet  tall,  the  most  majestic 
birds  in  America,  the  snow-white  plumage 
of  the  adults  forming  beautiful  contrast  to 
the  pure  golden  buff  of  the  young.  Near 
them  a  thousand  smaller  relatives,  the  sand- 
hill cranes,  executed  a  war  dance  on  the  oozy 

25 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

surface  of  a  mud  bar.  A  clump  of  mixed 
spruce  and  cottonwoods  sprouting  from  a 
knoll  out  in  the  swamp  was  built  thick  with 
broad  flat  nests  of  heavy  sticks,  a  giant  rook- 
ery of  the  great  blue  herons. 

The  Tetons  spread  their  lengthening 
shadows  across  the  picture  as  the  boy  pick- 
eted one  horse  in  a  grassy  park  and  turned 
the  rest  out  to  graze.  The  scene  blurred; 
the  purple  shadows  deepened,  to  merge 
imperceptibly  into  the  velvet  black  of  a 
mountain  night,  —  and  the  silent  hills  woke 
to  life. 

It  was  the  running  time  of  the  antlered 
game.  The  lordly  rulers  of  the  elk  tribe  were 
feeling  the  urge  of  the  season  and  descending 
from  their  summer  homes  in  the  high  pockets, 
coming  down  to  the  valleys  where  dwelt  the 
cows.  A  mighty  herd  bull  on  the  shores  of 
the  lake  thrust  forth  his  head  and  sent  his 
clarion  challenge  pealing  across  the  hills. 
Another  answered.  As  if  at  a  given  signal 
a  score  of  others  chimed  in,  the  shrill  squeal- 
ing whistles  of  young  aspirants  mingling 
with  the  rich  full  bugles  of  the  six-point 
monarchs  who  bossed  herds  of  their  own. 
From  far  and  near  the  whole  expanse  of  the 
hills  rang  with  the  silvery  peals  of  lovelorn 
bulls. 

A  huge  grizzly  shuffled  silently  on  broad 
26 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

padded  feet  and  stood  swaying  from  side  to 
side  as  he  tested  the  wind  from  the  camp. 

A  chorus  of  yelping  barks  rose  from  close 
at  hand  as  a  band  of  cow  elk  regarded  the 
dancing  rays  of  the  fire.  A  hundred  big- 
horn sheep  peered  from  the  slopes  of  the 
Tetons  at  the  red  reflection,  a  slender  thread 
of  fire  reaching  out  across  the  still  surface  to 
connect  them  with  the  glowing  spark  on  the 
far  shore  of  the  lake. 

Music  of  unseen  wings  filled  the  night,  the 
soft  wing-whistles  of  snow-flying  birds  fre- 
quently varied  by  the  hissing  screech  of  some 
flock  of  speedsters  hurtling  through  the  air 
with  tremendous  velocity.  The  weird  whoops 
of  the  great  white  cranes  rose  above  the  con- 
tented chuckles  of  half  a  million  ducks,  the 
harsh  squawks  of  herons  and  the  clamor  of 
big  gray  honkers.  A  volley  of  wild,  clear 
notes  dropped  into  the  medley  from  on  high 
as  a  band  of  trumpeter  swans  winged  up  the 
lake. 

The  beaver  were  busy  making  their  food 
caches  against  the  lean  days  of  winter,  and 
scarce  a  passing  minute  but  was  punctuated 
by  the  whack  of  a  broad  tail  upon  the  waters 
of  some  beaver  pond  out  in  the  swamp.  A 
twelve-inch  cottonwood,  undermined  by  their 
scoring  teeth,  toppled  and  crashed  down,  the 
hollow  boom  of  its  impact  with  the  water 

27 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

filling  the  valley  and  rolling  on  across  the 
hills  in  overlapping  waves  of  sound  to  be 
tossed  in  rumbling  echoes  from  rim  to  rim. 
And  the  sound  reached  the  ears  of  a  hundred 
thousand  elk  on  their  native  range. 


IV 

THE  Bannocks  of  the  west  and  the  Black- 
feet  of  the  north  spoke  of  the  stream  as  the 
Yellow  Rock  and  early  in  the  century  the 
whites  had  so  labeled  the  unknown  country 
which  shrouded  its  head  reaches,  calling  it 
the  Yellowstone.  The  Crows  pointed  west- 
ward from  their  country  in  the  Bighorns  and 
referred  to  an  ancient  legend,  handed  down 
through  generations  to  their  people,  which 
told  of  the  land  of  the  Two  Ocean  Waters. 
When  the  first  roving  bands  of  free  trappers 
penetrated  the  country  of  the  Gros  Ventres, 
on  the  Snake,  the  Indians  pointed  north  and 
shook  their  heads. 

"Burning  Mountain.  No  good,"  they  told 
the  white  men. 

All  tribes  referred  to  it  in  a  general  way  as  the 
Land  of  Many  Rivers,  and  all  whites  knew 
it  as  Colter's  Hell,  from  the  wondrous  and 
incredible  tales  which  John  Colter,  the  first 
pioneer  to  look  upon  its  marvels,  had  given 
broadcast  to  the  world.  And  it  was  with 
mixed  emotions,  tempered  both  by  the  rev- 
erent awe  of  the  red  men  and  the  irreverent 

29 


THE   PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

disbelief  of  the  whites,  that  Mart  Woodson 
pushed  ever  deeper  into  the  heart  of  the  un- 
known hills. 

A  week  after  leaving  that  first  camp  on 
the  shores  of  Jackson  Lake  the  two  men 
mounted  a  divide.  They  had  pressed  north- 
ward through  a  network  of  lakes  and  con- 
necting streams.  The  heavy  timber  on  the 
crest  of  the  divide  obscured  their  view  as 
they  took  the  steep  drop  at  the  head  of  a 
tiny  stream  which  broke  down  the  far  slope. 
Throughout  the  day  they  threaded  the  tan- 
gled blow-downs  of  the  stream  bed  and  just 
at  nightfall  came  out  upon  the  point  of  a  spur 
which  overlooked  the  little  river  into  which  it 
flowed. 

Woodson  held  up  his  hand,  believing  that 
he  had  come  upon  the  haunt  of  some  un- 
known tribe,  some  mighty  nation  numbering 
ten  thousand  lodges.  A  broad  bottom  spread 
out  before  them,  closed  in  again  far  down 
the  valley,  guarded  by  the  black  bulk  of  the 
hills,  and  against  this  somber  background  in- 
numerable vaporous  columns  showed  in  milk- 
white  relief.  From  the  sheltering  fringe  of 
trees  behind  him  old  Tom  North  peered 
down  upon  the  spectacle  which  the  boy 
mistook  for  the  smoke  from  ten  thousand 
teepees  pitched  out  in  the  flats. 

"The  Firehole,"  he  said.  "The  Burning 
30 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Mountain  of  the  Grovants  —  Colter's  Hell. 
We  've  come  smack  on  to  it." 

It  is  at  this  time  of  evening,  an  hour  after 
sundown,  when  the  white  glare  of  the  day 
has  passed  and  thousands  of  steam  jets  show 
in  pallid  outline  against  the  encircling  tim- 
bered slopes,  that  the  mind  of  man  is  most 
apt  to  comprehend  the  immensity  of  the 
Geyser  Basin.  As  they  gazed  upon  it,  a 
column  of  steam  and  water  rose  in  the  air, 
seemed  to  recede  only  to  gather  fresh  impetus 
from  some  unseen  force  below,  rose  with  new 
strength  and  tossed  its  scalding  pillar  two 
hundred  feet  aloft,  then  sank  back,  descending 
slowly  as  if  resisting  the  destructive  power 
that  sucked  its  fragile  grandeur  back  to  earth. 
Every  hour  throughout  the  night,  with  a  per- 
sistent regularity  which  impressed  the  boy 
as  later  it  impressed  the  millions,  this  monster 
of  the  deeps  sought  to  uproot  its  fetters  and 
ascend  on  high. 

The  hiss  of  escaping  steam  filled  the  gather- 
ing dusk  as  the  whispers  of  terrestrial  spirits, 
while  from  beneath  issued  deep  rumblings 
such  as  might  spring  from  the  booming  tom- 
toms of  subterranean  gods.  For  days  there- 
after the  two  traveled  through  the  miles  of 
Colter's  Hell.  They  peered  into  flower-like 
pools  of  boiling  water  shaded  with  rainbow 
hues,  viewed  scalding  jets  pouring  from  vents 

31 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

in  the  valley  floor  and  stood  on  the  brink  of 
caldrons  stewing  with  oil  paints  of  gray  tints 
and  of  pink ;  watched  giant  columns  of  water 
flung  skyward  to  dissolve  in  rainbow  mists 
till  the  boy's  brain  was  surfeited  with  the 
steady  procession  of  all  the  fresh  marvels 
of  the  world  rolled  into  one. 

It  was  with  a  surge  of  relief  —  a  sense  of 
coming  out  from  the  occult  to  the  real,  an 
escape  from  the  freakishly  unnatural  to  the 
majestic  serenity  of  the  silent  hills  —  that 
he  led  the  way  across  a  high  plateau  to  look 
down  into  a  vast  gorge  hemmed  in  by  brilliant 
yellow  walls,  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Yellow- 
stone, and  he  slept  that  night  to  the  hollow 
pound  of  the  falls. 

North  knew  from  this  that  since  leaving 
Jackson  Lake,  somewhere  among  this  inter- 
lacing whirl  of  lakes  and  streams,  they  had 
crossed  the  great  divide  of  a  continent,  for 
the  waters  of  the  Yellowstone  found  their 
way  to  a  different  sea  than  that  which  re- 
ceived those  of  the  Snake ;  yet  they  had  failed 
to  come  upon  the  fabled  stream  whose  waters 
flowed  both  ways.  They  turned  up  country 
and  followed  the  shores  of  the  Yellowstone 
and  at  last,  after  many  long  days  on  the  game 
trails  and  in  following  out  a  dozen  false  leads, 
they  stood  in  the  dip  of  a  high  divide. 

A  creek  wandered  along  its  broad  crest, 
32 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD    WEST 

flowing  down  the  gentle  slope  from  melting 
drifts  above,  splitting  into  a  dozen  courses 
to  wander  through  the  flat  meadow  in  the 
dip,  collecting  again  in  two  channels  to  fall 
away  on  either  side  of  the  pass. 

One  trickle  drained  toward  the  Grand 
Tetons  which  they  could  see  against  the  sky, 
flowing  by  way  of  the  Snake  and  the  Columbia 
to  empty  in  the  Pacific.  The  other,  they 
knew,  drained  on  the  side  that  shed  toward  the 
broad  lake  of  the  Yellowstone  which  they 
had  passed  three  days  before,  and  from  there 
found  its  way  through  the  Missouri  and  the 
Mississippi  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Off  to 
the  south  they  could  see  the  dim  outlines 
of  the  pass  through  which  they  had  crossed 
days  back  notching  the  divide  between  the 
Gros  Ventre  and  the  Green.  Beyond  it  the 
water  drained  through  the  Grand  Canyon  of 
the  Colorado  to  the  California  Gulf.  Truly 
the  water  from  these  hills  flowed  three  ways. 

The  valley  of  the  Firehole  had  verified  the 
Burning  Mountain  of  the  Gros  Ventres; 
the  brilliant  yellow  walls  of  the  canyon  had 
justified  the  appellation  given  it  by  the  Ban- 
nocks and  the  Blackfeet  of  the  north ;  and 
here,  under  their  very  feet,  the  two  men  found 
incontrovertible  evidence  of  the  truth  of  that 
ancient  Crow  legend  which  referred  to  the 
Two  Ocean  Waters. 

33 


V 

THE  war  chief  of  the  Crows,  and  later 
old  Tom  North,  had  said  that  the  beaver 
were  gone  from  the  streams,  yet,  in  all  his 
travels  since  striking  the  mouth  of  the  Gros 
Ventre,  Woodson  had  rarely  been  beyond 
sight  of  their  workings.  Every  soggy  bottom 
was  padded  thick  with  beaver  drags  from  one 
pond  to  the  next.  The  sloping  banks  of  the 
streams  were  cut  by  the  slides  of  bank 
beaver  and  every  aspen  grove  on  the  lake 
shores  showed  the  marks  of  their  teeth.  The 
course  of  each  seeping  spring-fed  trickle 
was  dammed  again  and  again,  leading  down 
in  terraced  series  of  backed-up  pools  with 
great  beaver  houses  of  logs  and  mud  rising 
above  their  waters. 

It  seemed  to  him  that  the  numbers  of  the 
furred  engineers  were  legion.  In  this  high 
country  the  streams  had  not  been  trapped  out 
to  the  last  pelt  and  the  fur  was  on  the  in- 
crease since  the  trap  lines  had  been  pulled. 
Even  in  the  face  of  this  evidence  of  plenty 
he  knew  that  throughout  the  country  as  a 
whole  there  was  not  one  beaver  in  the  streams 

34 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

to  every  ten  thousand  that  had  used  them  in 
the  past;  but  from  the  abundance  of  fur 
signs  he  was  confident  that  his  winter's 
catch  would  rival  that  of  the  half -wild  trappers 
of  an  earlier  day. 

With  but  two  packs  they  had  been  able 
to  transport  only  the  bare  necessities  for  a 
winter  in  the  hills,  the  traps  constituting 
a  full  half  of  the  total  weight  and  bulk  brought 
in  on  the  two  pack  animals,  so  with  no  other 
tools  than  their  axes  and  knives  the  two  men 
set  about  making  themselves  comfortable  for 
the  winter  months. 

Woodson  selected  a  grove  of  eight-inch 
lodgepole,  the  trees  towering  a  hundred  feet 
without  a  crook,  their  slender  trunks  rising 
as  straight  and  true  as  the  barrel  of  a  rifle. 
A  score  of  these  he  felled  and  cut  into  proper 
lengths  for  house  logs  while  North  notched 
the  ends  half  through.  By  fitting  these 
notches  to  overlap  the  ends,  they  carried 
up  the  corners  of  a  hut  ten  feet  by 
twelve. 

The  boy  poured  water  on  the  earth  at  one 
rear  corner  and  tamped  the  spot  with  the 
smooth  end  of  a  log.  He  carried  flat  stones 
from  a  rock  slide  and  North  built  a  rude 
fireplace  on  this  hearth  of  beaten  earth,  carry- 
ing a  rough  chimney  up  the  corner  till  it 
protruded  two  feet  above  the  open  top  of  the 

35 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

hut  and  cementing  the  stones  with  puddled 
clay.  They  roofed  the  sloping  top  with 
five-inch  jack  pine,  stripped  each  crack  with 
a  smaller  pole  and  covered  the  whole  with  a 
deep  layer  of  earth.  A  crude  opening  two  feet 
by  four  had  been  left  in  the  front  of  the  hut 
and  this  sole  aperture  was  covered  with  an 
elk  hide  to  shut  out  the  cold.  The  cracks  were 
chinked  with  mud  and  their  winter's  shelter 
stood  complete. 

Then  North  set  forth  to  instruct  the  boy  in 
the  ways  of  the  trap  line  as  formerly  he  had 
taught  him  all  he  knew  of  the  trails  of  heavier 
game.  The  first  soft  snowfalls  of  the  season 
had  melted,  save  on  the  sheltered  slopes  of 
heavy  timber,  but  for  two  weeks  every  night 
frost  had  formed  a  thin  skin  of  ice  on  the  still 
surface  of  the  beaver  ponds.  Two  hundred 
yards  from  camp  they  made  the  first  set  of 
the  trap  line. 

A  beaver  slide  came  up  the  banks  of  the 
Yellowstone  and  followed  through  the  rank 
grass  of  the  meadow  to  an  aspen  grove  where 
this  particular  family  of  bank  beaver  carried 
on  their  logging  operations.  A  score  of  fresh 
stumps  and  two  newly  felled  trees  gave 
evidence  that  they  were  still  at  work. 

Twenty  feet  from  the  slide  and  some  ten 
inches  under  water  North  set  the  trap,  bed- 
ding it  on  a  flat  rock  which  he  pressed  in  the 

36 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

mud.  Beyond  it  the  bank  sloped  sharply 
into  three  feet  of  water.  He  fastened  the 
chain  to  a  heavy  stone  and  slid  this  drag 
gently  down  into  the  deeper  water  offshore. 
Every  animal  is  endowed  with  glands  secret- 
ing the  general  scent  of  its  tribe,  thus  being 
easily  classified  by  the  noses  of  other  beasts. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  each  individual 
has  a  distinctive  scent  of  its  own,  as  identi- 
fication among  animals  is  conducted  almost 
exclusively  by  scent,  not  by  sight  as  is  the 
case  with  man.  Any  beaver  in  a  colony  will 
rise  to  the  scent  of  a  stranger  invading  its 
neighborhood.  North  fashioned  a  mud  pile 
on  the  bank,  such  as  beaver  throw  up  for 
purposes  of  identification,  and  into  this 
sign  heap,  as  it  is  called  by  trappers,  he  thrust 
a  tiny  portion  of  beaver  castor  obtained 
from  an  animal  he  had  shot  in  a  different 
locality. 

They  worked  down  the  Yellowstone  to  its 
junction  with  the  Thorofare  and  made  a 
dozen  such  sets  for  bank  beaver.  North 
swung  aside  to  investigate  every  beaver  pool 
dammed  up  on  the  little  streams  that  mean- 
dered across  the  bottoms  to  join  the  river. 
Here  the  beaver  lived  in  houses  built  up  in 
the  center  of  the  ponds.  The  water  in  the 
majority  of  these  pools  was  shallow  near  the 
margins  and  he  made  no  sets  except  where 

37 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

there  was  drowning  water  immediately  off- 
shore. For  the  rest  he  contented  himself 
with  locating  the  food  caches  where  the 
thrifty  colonists  had  covered  patches  of  the 
pond  floors  with  willows  and  sections  of  heavy 
green  aspen  logs  jammed  down  into  the  mud ; 
these  observations  were  made  with  an  eye 
to  future  and  more  cunning  sets  after  the 
ice  should  form.  They  turned  up  the  Thoro- 
fare  and  worked  that  stream  after  the  same 
manner. 

The  following  day  their  course  lay  up- 
stream from  camp  and  covered  the  head  of 
the  Yellowstone  and  its  tributary  creeks. 
The  boy  carried  his  own  traps  and  followed  a 
separate  route,  and  when  they  reached  the 
cabin  at  nightfall  the  last  of  their  fifty  beaver 
traps  was  in  the  water,  waiting  with  gaping 
jaws  for  the  first  unwary  foot  to  be  thrust 
upon  its  pan. 

North  had  noted  that  the  ducks  had  sud- 
denly deserted  the  streams  and  pools  of  the 
high  country.  The  beaver  houses  were  cov- 
ered with  a  fresh  coating  of  wet  mud.  And 
the  old  man  knew  the  signs. 

"She 's  going  to  tighten  up,"  he  said. 
We  're  in  for  a  stiff  freeze  to-night." 

So,  in  imitation  of  the  beaver,  they  carried 
soft  mud  from  the  streams  and  plastered  the 
outside  of  their  hut  to  seal  the  crevices  which 

38 


THE   PASSING   OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

had  worked  through  as  the  clay  chinking 
baked  dry  and  drew  apart.  The  hills  were 
silent,  lacking  even  the  rustle  of  a  breeze  to 
stir  the  pines,  and  into  this  dead  calm  a 
gripping  chill  was  beginning  to  settle  down 
from  the  peaks.  During  the  night  the  mud 
plaster  froze  into  an  iron  shell  which  shut 
out  the  frost.  Toward  morning  it  warmed, 
and  the  first  spitting  flakes  of  a  storm  sifted 
down  through  the  trees;  when  Woodson 
drew  aside  the  elk  hide  to  peer  forth  in  the 
first  gray  light  he  looked  out  upon  a  white 
world,  the  ghostly  flakes  still  falling. 

Then  he  reached  behind  him  for  his  gun. 
Fifty  yards  down  an  aisle  through  the  trees 
a  monster  silver  tip  stood  curiously  survey- 
ing this  strange  structure  of  logs  and  mud 
which  had  sprung  up  in  the  center  of  his 
range.  For  fifty  years  he  had  roamed  the 
head  reaches  of  the  Yellowstone  and  had 
never  before  looked  upon  such  work  as  this. 
North  peered  over  the  boy's  shoulder  as  he 
steadied  the  gun  against  the  logs  and  looked 
down  the  barrel  at  the  bear. 

The  shot  went  true  and  as  the  heavy  slug 
from  the  Sharp  ripped  through  his  chest 
the  big  grizzly  loosed  a  roar  that  rivaled 
the  deep  bellow  of  the  buffalo  gun.  He  tore 
at  the  rent  with  raking  claws  then  charged 
headlong  toward  the  two  men  in  the  door, 

39 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

intent  upon  crushing  them  down  and  mauling 
them  with  the  last  of  his  strength. 

He  wavered  in  his  stride  and  lurched  down 
in  the  snow;  a  fortunate  kill,  for  the  bears 
would  soon  take  to  their  winter  dens  and 
sleep  the  long  sleep  till  spring,  blocked  in  by 
heavy  drifts;  and  the  men  needed  lard  in 
camp. 

They  stripped  the  pelt  from  the  baldface 
and  laid  bare  the  thick  layer  of  fat  stored  up 
to  nourish  his  great  frame  through  the  lean 
winter  months.  Hour  after  hour,  while 
it  snowed  outside,  they  tried  out  the  drip- 
ping chunks  of  fat  over  a  slow  fire  on  the 
hearth,  mixing  with  it  a  portion  of  the  solid 
tallow  of  an  elk  to  lend  stiffness  and  body 
to  the  soft  lard  of  the  bear.  This  they  drained 
off  into  their  few  pots  and  pans  and  placed 
outside  where  it  quickly  cooled,  then  dumped 
it  from  the  containers  in  solid  molds  to  be 
stored  on  the  roof  of  the  hut. 

The  storm  shov/ed  no  symptoms  of  lifting 
and  they  set  forth  the  next  day  to  run  the 
lower  trap  line,  traveling  in  a  foot  of  soft 
feathery  snow.  The  ponds  were  frozen  over 
but  the  flow  of  the  running  water  had  kept  the 
streams  open,  moving  black  and  smooth  be- 
tween shores  of  white. 

Woodson  looked  over  the  bank  at  the  first 
set  below  the  camp.  The  trap  was  gone. 

40 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

A  few  feet  out  in  the  river  and  well  below  the 
surface  a  big  furry  shape  wavered  in  the 
current.  North  hooked  the  trap  chain  with 
a  forked  stick  and  drew  their  catch  ashore, 
—  a  three-year-old  beaver  in  late  fall  fur. 

He  had  made  for  the  deep  water  when  the 
jaws  clamped  on  his  foot  and  the  rock  weight 
had  anchored  him  there  to  drown,  —  North's 
reason  for  choosing  the  set  adjacent  to  deep 
water  and  toggling  the  trap  to  a  rock.  He 
could  thus  make  use  of  smaller  traps  of 
much  less  weight  to  pack  and  yet  be  sure  of 
retaining  every  victim  that  stepped  upon  a 
trap  pan.  The  run  yielded  twelve  pelts. 

For  four  days  it  stormed  without  a  break 
and  the  snow  lay  thirty  inches  on  the  level. 
During  the  last  two  days  North  was  busy 
fashioning  snowshoes  from  tough  saplings  of 
mountain  alder  and  webbing  them  with  elk 
hide  thongs.  A  savage  wind  followed  the 
cessation  of  the  snow,  lashing  the  branches 
and  shaking  the  banked  flakes  from  the 
trees.  It  scoured  the  snow  from  the  ridges 
and  piled  it  deep  in  the  bottoms  and  in  the 
heavy  timber  of  the  slopes.  They  kept  to  the 
stout  log  shelter  out  of  the  fierce  blast  of 
biting  crystals  that  hurtled  before  the  drive 
of  the  wind,  fleshing  the  pelts  of  their  first 
catch  and  listening  to  the  screech  of  the  gale 
through  the  trees.  When  they  peered  out- 

41 


THE  PASSING   OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

side  the  hills  seemed  alive  with  ghostly 
shapes  as  the  elk  herds  started  drifting  before 
the  storm,  the  backs  of  the  animals  crusted 
with  white  and  their  hoofs  making  no  sound 
on  the  feathery  carpet  underfoot,  a  silent 
army  of  wraiths  headed  for  new  stamping 
grounds. 

"Most  of  this  snow  will  lay  in  the  hills  till 
spring,"  North  said.  "The  elk  are  bunching 
to  pull  out  of  the  high  country  and  work 
down  to  the  winter  range.  We  '11  have  to  get 
our  meat." 

The  wind  died  down  at  last  and  the  sun 
flared  forth.  They  set  out  on  their  new  webs, 
traveling  separately,  to  make  the  rounds 
of  the  whole  trap  line,  and  that  night  found 
thirty  fresh  pelts  in  camp.  A  hundred  thou- 
sand elk  had  grazed  on  the  Thorofare  and  the 
Yellowstone  before  the  storm.  Now  the 
meadows  were  empty,  the  broad  plateaus 
devoid  of  life.  North  had  noted  great  trails 
plowed  through  the  snow  where  thousands 
had  drifted  down  the  bottoms  toward  the 
lower  feed.  Others  led  out  through  the 
passes  in  the  surrounding  divides. 

"There 's  enough  elk  summer  in  these 
hills  to  feed  the  world,"  North  said.  "But 
they  winter  lower  down.  To-morrow  we  '11 
lay  in  enough  meat  to  see  us  through." 

The  big  droves  had  gone  but  there  were  still 
42 


THE   PASSING   OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

hundreds  of  laggards  in  the  high  valleys  and 
with  the  dawn  of  the  next  day  the  silence  of 
the  white  hills  was  shattered  by  the  reports 
of  North's  old  Henry  rifle  and  the  boy's 
heavy  Sharp.  They  downed  a  score  of  elk 
and  for  two  days  were  busy  dressing  them  out 
and  hanging  the  quarters  up  to  freeze.  Then 
they  turned  to  the  business  of  trapping  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  else. 

There  came  occasional  warm  days  which 
settled  the  snow,  others  when  low-scudding 
clouds  obscured  the  peaks  and  shed  new 
layers  of  white  on  the  old  packed  drifts.  As 
long  as  there  was  sufficient  open  water  on  the 
streams  and  the  bank  beaver  kept  the  mouths 
of  their  slides  free  of  ice,  the  two  men  used  the 
same  sets  as  at  first.  They  worked  hard  at 
their  lines  and  averaged  better  than  the  ten 
hides  a  day,  and  at  night  they  sat  before  the 
fire  on  the  hearth  and  fleshed  out  the  pelts. 

Day  by  day  they  increased  their  lines  and 
brought  their  smaller  traps  into  play.  Some 
of  these  they  placed  back  in  sheltered  cave-ins 
under  the  banks,  where  mink  were  most 
apt  to  prowl  as  they  traveled  down  the  ice. 
Marten  lines  were  thrown  across  the  timbered 
divides  separating  the  tributary  streams. 
With  these  last  a  spring  pole  served  the  pur- 
pose of  the  rock  weights  of  the  beaver  sets. 
Woodson  learned  to  place  a  pole  through  the 

43 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

forks  of  a  tree,  pull  the  light  end  down  and 
slip  it  under  a  wooden  peg  driven  into  a 
spruce  trunk,  the  trap  toggled  to  the  slender 
tip  of  the  pole.  The  first  leap  of  a  trapped 
marten  released  the  tip  from  beneath  the  peg. 
The  heavy  butt  of  the  pole  dropped  to  earth 
on  the  far  side  of  the  forks  to  swing  the  light 
end  aloft  and  leave  both  trap  and  marten 
dangling  high  in  the  air. 

Winter  tightened  down  in  earnest  and  the 
last  strips  of  open  water  pinched  out.  The 
beaver  no  longer  prowled  abroad  for  food 
but  lived  on  the  caches  of  willow,  aspen  and 
birch  stored  long  past  in  the  mud.  The 
slides  in  the  banks  were  snowed  under,  their 
mouths  clogged  with  ten  inches  of  ice,  and 
so  the  bank  sets  were  pulled.  North  initiated 
the  boy  into  the  mysteries  of  the  under-ice 
set  in  the  ponds. 

With  his  web  he  scooped  the  snow  from 
above  a  food  cache  noted  earlier  in  the  fall 
and  cut  a  hole  through  the  ice.  Thirty 
inches  below  its  under  edge  they  could  see 
the  soft  mud  of  the  bottom.  He  drove  a 
sharpened  wood  peg  into  a  green  aspen  pole 
and  over  this  hooked  one  spring  of  a  double- 
spring  trap,  then  bent  the  other  back  on  the 
far  side  of  the  pole  and  lashed  it  fast.  When 
he  thrust  this  down  far  into  the  mud  of  the 
bottom  the  trap  stood  straight  out  from  the 

44 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

upright  log,  both  springs  cocked  well  back  to 
either  side.  This  green  log  was  food,  and 
once  the  ice  re-formed  over  the  open  hole  it 
was  wedged  in  place.  A  beaver,  in  rearing 
to  cut  off  the  stick  at  the  under  edge  of  the 
ice,  would  rest  his  forefoot  on  the  protruding 
shelf  of  the  trap  eight  inches  below. 

Thereafter  the  boy  used  this  set.  The 
mercury  hung  for  weeks  at  twenty  below, 
then  sank  again.  The  edge  of  the  elk  hide 
which  sheltered  the  doorway  was  perpetually 
fringed  with  a  rim  of  white  frost  as  the  cold 
blast  from  without  met  and  battled  with  the 
warm  air  seeping  through  from  the  inside  of 
the  hut.  A  foot  of  spruce  boughs,  packed 
behind  a  log  that  lay  parallel  to  one  side  of  the 
room  and  mattressed  down  with  an  elk  hide, 
served  as  their  bunk.  Over  them  the  half- 
tanned  pelt  of  the  mighty  bear  was  added 
to  their  meager  supply  of  blankets  to  keep 
them  warm  at  night. 

They  lived  almost  exclusively  upon  meat, 
— elk  steaks  occasionally  varied  by  a  meal  of 
beaver  tails,  lynx  cutlets  as  tender  and  white 
as  veal,  or  a  few  trout  caught  through  holes 
in  the  ice.  Infrequently,  as  a  special  treat, 
they  drew  upon  their  slender  store  of  flour 
and  baked  a  meager  portion  of  frying-pan 
bread,  washing  down  the  heavy  bannock  with 
a  pot  of  tea. 

45 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

North's  strength  waned  as  the  winter 
advanced  and  he  could  no  longer  cover  his 
full  share  of  the  line.  Woodson  took  over 
first  one  tributary  creek,  then  an  extra  marten 
line  on  the  ridges,  till  at  last  he  was  covering 
the  whole  of  their  lines  while  the  old  hide- 
hunter  stayed  within  to  prepare  the  meals  and 
care  for  their  catch.  For  a  time  the  horses 
had  fared  well  on  a  high  plateau  exposed  to 
the  sweep  of  the  wind  which  kept  the  cured 
grass  free  of  snow.  When  this  feed  played 
out  Woodson  moved  them  down  the  country 
to  a  little  side  valley  where  warm  springs 
laid  bare  small  patches  of  grass. 

The  snow  lay  five  feet  on  the  level  across 
the  open  bottoms,  and  in  the  timber  it  was  at 
places  twice  that  depth.  As  the  boy  fol- 
lowed his  lone  trail  over  the  trap  line  the 
solitude  and  the  white  silence  of  the  hills  grew 
on  him  and  held  him.  He  had  come  to  know 
and  love  the  high  country  in  both  its  fall 
and  winter  moods.  He  had  yet  to  see  the 
spring.  In  the  fall  the  whole  hills,  blazing 
with  warm  color,  had  teemed  with  life. 
Now  they  were  but  a  dead  white  expanse 
with  no  night  sounds  to  relieve  the  frozen 
silence;  never  the  rustle  of  a  wing  or  the 
cheep  of  a  bird.  Even  the  garrulous  red 
squirrels  had  withdrawn  to  their  holes  and 
the  gruff  hoot  of  the  great  gray  owls  was 

46 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

missing;  only  the  popping  of  the  ice  under 
the  clamp  of  intense  frost  could  be  heard. 
The  trap  line  now  extended  down  to  Lake 
Yellowstone.  This  vast  sheet  of  water, 
tucked  under  the  shadow  of  the  peaks, 
was  frozen  over  and  buried  beneath  the  snow, 
its  hundred  and  forty  miles  of  surface  stretch- 
ing away  in  an  unbroken  plain  of  white,  un- 
marred  by  so  much  as  a  footprint  save  where 
some  traveling  otter  left  his  tracks  from  one 
air  hole  to  the  next. 

Added  to  this  was  the  lure  of  the  trap  line. 
There  is  that  hope  and  expectancy,  the 
urge  to  visit  the  next  set  and  find  what  it 
holds ;  the  variety  and  uncertainty  of  the 
catch.  It  gets  into  the  blood,  and  once  a  man 
winters  on  the  trap  line  he  never  forgets. 
He  may  shoot  till  the  slaughter  palls,  may 
fish  the  streams  till  he  tires  of  the  sport,  but 
till  the  day  he  dies  his  blood  will  speed  up 
when  his  mind  travels  back  over  the  trap 
line ;  to  the  casing  boards  for  marten  and 
mink,  the  beaver  hides  stretched  flat,  —  to  a 
good  catch  of  fur  in  a  winter  camp. 

Often  the  boy  stopped  in  the  little  valley 
of  warm  springs  which  sheltered  the  horses. 
They  looked  for  his  coming  and  at  such 
times  he  spoke  to  them  as  he  would  have  con- 
versed with  other  men. 

Fur  was  increasingly  difficult  to  catch  and 
47 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

the  yield  of  the  line  was  small.  Bright  days 
came  to  start  brief  thaws  between  the  long 
frozen  nights.  The  days  lengthened  and 
some  few  nights  carried  a  breath  of  spring. 
The  drifts  were  settling;  a  few  trickles  of 
water  seeped  under  the  snow  and  the  wind 
rotted  and  honeycombed  the  ice  on  the 
ponds.  Open  lanes  showed  in  the  streams. 

The  fur  of  the  marten  was  beginning  to 
slip  and  the  flesh  side  of  the  pelts  showed 
blue,  so  Woodson  pulled  his  traps.  But  the 
spring  coat  of  the  beaver  is  better  furred 
than  the  one  he  wears  in  the  fall  and  he  worked 
on  these  at  every  pond  which  revealed  fresh 
sign. 

Open  patches  appeared  in  the  meadows,  the 
hardy  green  grass  sprouting  clear  to  the  foot 
of  the  drifts.  Then  Woodson  sprang  the  last 
of  his  traps. 

He  had  made  a  good  catch;  twelve  hun- 
dred pelts,  mainly  beaver,  but  with  a  goodly 
showing  of  marten  and  mink  and  a  few  skins 
of  otter,  foxes  and  cats.  The  fur  would  have 
to  be  relayed  out,  for  there  was  far  more 
than  their  slender  pack  string  could  transport 
at  a  single  trip.  Woodson  waited  now  only 
for  the  passes  to  clear  of  snow  and  afford  good 
going  so  he  could  make  a  start  with  old  Tom 
North. 

And  while  he  waited  the  dead  hills  came  to 
48 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

life.  The  first  leaves  shot  out  from  deciduous 
trees.  The  bears  came  from  their  winter 
dens  and  left  their  tracks  on  the  melting 
spring  drifts  as  they  prowled  the  hills  in 
search  of  food  after  the  six  months'  fast. 
The  little  squirrels  chattered  and  scolded 
and  the  harsh  squawk  of  the  big  gray  jays 
answered  them  from  the  timber.  Chipmunks 
came  out  to  sun  themselves  on  the  rocks  and 
explored  the  windfall  jams  that  rose  above 
the  drifts.  The  skies  were  streaked  with 
north-bound  fliers  and  the  beaver  ponds  were 
covered  with  mating  ducks.  Then  the  elk 
came  back  to  their  summer  range.  They 
drifted  up  the  bottoms  in  great  droves,  moving 
up  from  the  lower  Yellowstone ;  others 
streamed  in  through  the  passes  from  all 
sides.  The  land  was  alive  with  meat  as  the 
mighty  bands  came  back  to  the  summer  feed. 
Woodson  had  forgotten  that  there  was 
such  abundant  life  in  the  world  and  as  the 
herds  continued  to  pour  into  the  meadows  he 
wondered  if  even  the  bison  on  the  plains 
could  compare  in  numbers  with  this  royal 
tribe  that  swarmed  in  every  valley  of  the  hills. 


49 


VI 

RUMORS  heretofore  discredited  were  dis- 
covered to  be  founded  on  facts,  the  facts 
duly  recorded  in  the  log  of  accredited  explorers 
and  heralded  to  the  world.  But  wherever 
men  fared,  no  matter  how  secluded  the 
pocket  of  the  hills  to  which  they  penetrated, 
they  found  evidence  that  some  solitary  wan- 
derer had  been  before  them.  His  horses 
had  grazed  in  hidden  meadows  and  they 
found  the  ashes  of  his  camp  fires  on  the 
shores  of  unmapped  lakes.  It  was  said  that 
the  range  that  rimmed  the  new  land  in  on 
the  east  was  impenetrable,  that  no  man 
could  cross  through  its  wild  passes ;  but  in 
the  dead  of  winter,  long  after  the  Crow  tribe 
had  taken  to  winter  quarters  in  the  lower 
valleys,  some  white  man's  lone  trail  was 
often  seen  leading  down  out  of  these  peaks 
which  others  shunned  even  in  the  warmth 
of  summer.  He  was  ever  welcome  in  the 
wigwams  of  the  Crows  and  frequently  he 
tarried  for  a  few  days  in  their  villages,  but 
his  restlessness  always  drove  him  forth  to 
leave  his  tracks  in  the  secluded  fastnesses  of 
the  winter  hills.  When  a  party  of  explorers 

50 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

pressed  westward  up  the  valley  of  the  Stink- 
ing Water  to  determine  if  an  entrance  might 
be  effected  from  the  east,  they  found  the 
trails  of  horses  leading  up  a  tributary  stream 
which  broke  in  from  the  west  where  the  main 
river  flared  back  in  a  wide  sweeping  curve  to 
the  north  and  east.  These  tracks  led  up  an 
elk  trail,  threaded  the  mazes  of  a  frowning 
gorge,  crossed  the  lower  extremities  of  late- 
melting  snow  banks  and  came  out  at  last 
upon  the  Yellowstone  Slope. 

The  news  of  the  segregation  of  these  hills 
and  valleys  he  loved  had  brought  to  Mart 
Woodson  another  of  those  rare  moments 
of  exaltation.  The  invariable  theme  of  his 
childhood  tales  had  dealt  with  the  near- 
serfdom  of  the  inhabitants  of  far  countries 
and  had  built  up  in  his  mind  the  belief  that 
the  people  of  other  lands  were  chattels.  Now, 
as  if  in  direct  refutation  of  those  ancient 
policies  which  decreed  that  the  land  was 
God-given  for  the  benefit  and  pleasure  of  the 
few,  his  country  had  set  aside  the  wonder- 
spot  of  the  world  for  the  enjoyment  of  the 
many.  This  vast  reservation,  more  than 
three  thousand  square  miles  of  it,  belonged 
to  the  people  as  a  whole,  a  joint  estate  to 
descend  to  unborn  generations  for  a  thousand 
years  to  come.  Never  a  foot  of  it  could  come 
into  the  possession  of  individuals  or  concerns. 

51 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

What  more  could  a  man  ask  than  to  live 
his  life  upon  his  own  estate  comprising  hun- 
dreds of  square  miles?  This  belonged  to 
him.  A  thousand  might  share  it,  or  ten 
thousand,  but  his  own  rights  would  ever 
remain  the  same.  He  could  make  his  night 
fire  on  the  shores  of  some  stream,  leave  it 
the  next  morning  and  never  look  upon  it 
again  till  the  last  day  of  his  life,  but  always 
with  the  certain  knowledge  that  on  that 
day  he  could  return  and  say,  "Here  is  my 
camp,"  and  no  man  could  wave  him  off. 
But  a  man  should  know  his  own  property,  — 
so  Mart  Woodson  set  forth  to  explore  every 
nook  of  this  vast  estate  which  had  so  un- 
expectedly been  willed  to  him. 

His  wants  were  few.  He  killed  his  meat 
as  he  needed  it  and  when  he  felt  the  necessity 
of  gaining  a  few  dollars  with  which  to  buy 
supplies  he  worked  with  the  construction 
gang  that  had  been  sent  here  to  hew  out  a 
primitive  road  system  through  the  People's 
Park  while  the  nearest  railroad  point  was 
yet  five  hundred  miles  away;  but  mostly  he 
roamed  the  hills  and  whenever  seen  was 
mounted  on  a  bay  mare  that  mothered  a 
mare  colt.  He  scoured  the  hills  for  gold  in 
summers  and  panned  the  streams  from  the 
Flathead  to  the  Green,  prospected  the  ledges 
for  quartz  from  Big  Wing  River  to  the  Galla- 

52 


THE  PASSING   OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

tin.  When  a  party  of  explorers  verified  the 
existence  of  the  stream  which  flowed  to  both 
seas  and  heralded  to  the  world  their  find  of 
Two  Ocean  Pass,  they  found  also  a  low  mound 
of  earth  surmounted  by  a  headboard  slabbed 
out  with  an  ax  and  rudely  carved  with  the 
words  "Tom  North,"  testimony  that  in  this 
spot  men  had  lived  and  died  before  they 
came. 

Jim  Bridger's  tale  of  the  mountain  of 
black  glass  had  roused  a  shriek  of  derision 
that  echoed  round  the  earth,  yet  in  time 
others  found  it  as  he  had  said  they  would, 
and  as  they  gazed  upon  the  obsidian  cliff 
they  found  the  tracks  of  a  mare  and  colt 
along  its  base.  Homeric  mirth  had  rocked 
the  world  at  Bridger's  assertion  that  he  had 
caught  fish  in  the  icy  waters  of  a  lake  and 
cooked  them  in  boiling  springs  without  rising 
from  his  seat  or  removing  his  prey  from  the 
hook.  When  explorers  reached  this  spot 
they  found  the  bones  of  fish  upon  the  rocks. 
The  lone  wanderer  had  once  more  preceded 
them  and  cooked  his  meal  of  trout  a  month 
before  they  came. 

And  it  was  Woodson  himself  who  now 
came  in  for  a  share  of  ridicule  and  met  general 
disbelief  when  he  told  men  of  the  petrified 
forest  he  had  found.  It  stood  on  a  steep 
sidehill  cut  away  by  the  action  of  water. 

53 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Tier  upon  tier  it  rose,  succeeding  layers  ex- 
posed to  view,  fifteen  periods  of  forestation 
one  above  the  other.  Near  the  base  were 
stumps  more  than  a  dozen  feet  in  diameter, 
relics  of  the  ages  past,  when  tropical  vegeta- 
tion flourished  here.  Above  these  ancient 
ones,  in  successive  accumulation,  was  the 
evidence  of  the  gradual  cooling  of  the  earth 
on  down  to  date,  the  top  strata  containing 
vegetation  of  the  present  age.  Here  were 
not  merely  crumbling  fragments  of  bygone 
periods  but  exact  reproductions,  the  pre- 
served record  of  the  whole ;  bark  and  twigs 
intact,  ferns  and  shrubbery,  even  to  the  buds, 
held  in  delicate  tracery  of  stone  and  sprouting 
from  the  outcroppings  to  the  cliff.  But  in 
Woodson's  case  the  disbelief  was  not  so 
widespread.  Men  were  beginning  to  be- 
lieve all  things  possible  of  this  wondrous 
corner  of  the  earth.  It  was  decided  that 
he  should  lead  a  party  to  the  spot,  but  when 
they  sought  for  him  the  wanderer  was  gone. 
Years  later  he  led  men  to  the  ledges  and  they 
found  it  as  he  had  said,  the  most  complete 
record  of  its  kind  in  the  world. 

Woodson  had  moved  on  in  search  of  new 
lands  and  for  months  he  traveled  into  the 
west,  moving  by  easy  stages  with  his  little 
pack  string,  sampling  the  ledges  and  panning 
the  streams  en  ,  route.  Everywhere  there 

54 


THE  PASSING   OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

was  food  in  plenty  and  he  lived  off  the  country 
as  he  roamed.  He  came  at  last  into  a  land 
whose  natural  wealth  staggered  his  imagina- 
tion, the  giant  forests  of  the  northwest  coast. 
There  were  stretches  where  he  might  travel  for 
weeks  without  once  leaving  the  timber;  and 
such  timber !  Fir,  spruce  and  cedar  side  by 
side,  each  monster  capable  of  furnishing  from 
within  its  own  mighty  trunk  the  lumber  for 
a  small  village.  They  stood  ten  to  eighteen 
feet  through  at  the  butts,  rising  with  barely 
perceptible  lessening  of  dimension,  towering 
three  hundred  feet  aloft,  two  thirds  of  their 
height  without  a  limb.  From  these  a  man 
might  cut  beams  six  feet  through  by  a  hundred 
feet  in  length  as  easily  as  eight-inch  board 
stuff  is  cut  from  the  average  tree.  Week 
after  week  he  wandered  through  this  king  of 
forests,  the  ferns  growing  to  his  saddle  skirts. 
There  was  one  stretch  of  a  hundred  miles 
each  way,  covered  with  a  solid  stand  of  the 
finest  timber  known  to  man.  He  lingered  in 
this  tract  for  a  solid  year.  Here,  in  this  one 
stretch,  he  estimated,  was  enough  lumber 
to  rebuild  the  world,  lumber  that  was  clear, 
straight-grained  and  without  a  knot. 

He  was  a  man  of  the  open,  attuned  to 
Nature's  varying  moods ;  he  had  felt  the 
different  spells  exerted  by  mountain,  lake 
and  plain  and  thought  that  he  knew  them  all ; 

55 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

yet  here  was  something  new.  There  was  a 
hush  in  the  dim  aisles  of  this  mightiest  of  all 
forests,  a  reverent  silence  rarely  broken.  It 
was  so  completely  roofed  over  by  the  tufted 
tops  as  to  almost  exclude  the  light.  Even  the 
night  sounds  were  subdued  as  if  the  wild 
things  hesitated  to  raise  their  voices  above 
the  softest  croon  and  cheep  necessary  for 
communication  among  themselves.  Woodson 
some  way  disliked  to  shatter  the  silence 
with  his  voice  and  when  he  spoke  to  his 
horses  it  was  in  the  modulated  tones  one  uses 
in  some  ancient  cathedral  freighted  with 
reverent  memories. 

After  a  year  the  call  of  the  Yellowstone  drew 
him  on  the  back  trail.  As  he  traveled  he 
sometimes  pondered  about  that  mark  he 
would  make  for  himself  in  the  world.  Yet 
there  was  no  hurry.  There  was  undreamed 
plenty  of  everything  in  this  land  of  his. 
One  had  but  to  choose  his  course,  dip  in  and 
help  himself  from  the  storehouse  that  was 
inexhaustible,  —  Nature's  storehouse  that  re- 
plenished itself  without  help.  He  reflected 
that  ever  since  history  began,  this  natural 
reservoir  had  been  refilled  more  rapidly  than 
it  could  possibly  be  depleted  by  man.  A 
world  of  plenty;  leather  for  all  the  world 
from  the  buffalo  of  the  plains;  hardwood 
timber  without  end  to  the  eastward;  free 

56 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

grass  for  fifty  million  cows ;  meat  for  the  na- 
tion from  the  antelope  of  the  plains  and  the 
elk  and  mule  deer  of  the  hills ;  wealth  untold 
for  those  who  would  seek  for  it  and  burrow  in 
the  ground  for  gold;  and  in  this  great  un- 
touched forest  of  the  northwest  coast  was 
enough  lumber  to  roof  the  earth.  He  smiled 
and  slapped  the  brown  mare  on  the  neck  as  a 
whimsical  thought  crossed  his  mind. 

"She  did  n't  forget  a  thing,"  he  said.  "She 
did  n't  leave  one  thing  out.  There  's  enough 
of  everything  to  go  round  and  a  lot  to  spare. 
Back  in  the  Yellowstone,  where  we  're  headed 
for,  there  's  enough  natural  and  unnatural 
wonders  to  entertain  the  people  of  the  world. 
She  did  n't  even  leave  that  out  —  plenty 
of  everything  for  us  all." 

As  he  traveled  eastward  his  desire  to  look 
again  upon  this  best  land  of  all  increased 
and  he  made  longer  packs.  Soon  it  was 
rumored  that  the  lone  wanderer,  for  so  long 
a  part  of  the  Park,  had  returned  to  roam 
once  more  in  the  hills  of  the  Yellowstone. 
He  knew  the  valleys  of  warm  springs  where 
his  horses  might  winter  while  others  were 
forced  to  drive  their  stock  to  the  lower 
country.  He  prospected  far  and  wide  in 
summer  but  always  he  came  back  to  winter 
within  the  limits  of  his  own  estate. 

After  a  lapse  of  perhaps  fifteen  years  since 
57 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

Woodson  and  Old  Tom  had  quit  the  plains, 
a  little  pack  train  was  seen  winding  down  the 
east  slope  of  the  hills.  The  man  rode  a 
bay  mare  that  mothered  a  mare  colt.  In  the 
rear  of  the  string  still  another  bay  mare, 
ancient  and  decrepit,  pensioned  for  long 
service  and  unburdened  by  a  pack,  trailed 
stiffly  after  the  rest.  The  man  told  those 
he  met  along  the  trails  that  he  was  headed  for 
the  lower  country  to  join  a  hide  outfit  for  one 
last  buffalo  hunt  on  the  plains.  Men  smiled 
at  the  naive  plans  of  this  Rip  Van  Winkle 
who  had  been  alseep  in  the  hills;  for  the 
buffalo  was  gone. 

Woodson  knew  that  the  men  from  his  old 
outfit  —  Hanson,  Cleve,  McCann  and  all 
the  rest  —  would  be  wherever  the  most  of 
the  shaggy  beasts  had  congregated  for  the 
southward  drift  of  fall.  But  when  he  made 
inquiry  he  found  that  their  names  were  un- 
known to  the  present-day  dwellers  of  the 
foothills.  Men  told  him  that  the  buffalo 
was  no  more.  That  the  last  of  them  had 
been  killed  off  to  make  room  for  the  settler's 
cows.  As  he  traveled  east  he  experienced  a 
series  of  surprises.  Stockmen's  cabins  showed 
at  every  water  hole  where,  but  a  few  years 
past,  there  had  been  no  human  habitation 
within  two  hundred  miles.  All  this  was  as 
it  should  be,  he  reflected;  a  wild  country 

58 


THE   PASSING   OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

tamed  and  made  habitable  for  man.  It  was 
clear  that  the  buffalo  had  to  go  to  make 
room  for  the  cows.  But  the  job  had  certainly 
been  sweeping  and  thorough.  He  crossed 
vast  stretches  where  domestic  stock  had  not 
yet  arrived  but  the  way  had  been  paved  for 
them  years  in  advance  of  their  coming,  for 
not  a  single  buffalo  track  could  he  find. 
Little  towns  had  sprung  up  with  amazing 
rapidity.  Out  in  the  long  desolate  stretch 
between  Lander  and  Rawlins  he  covered 
forty-two  miles  unmarked  by  a  water  hole, 
an  arid  region  where  domestic  stock  could 
not  live  but  where  the  buffalo  might  have 
ranged  in  thousands ;  but  here  too  they  had 
been  wiped  out  to  the  last  hoof.  It  came  to 
him  that  he  knew  of  enough  waste  areas,  as 
yet  untouched  by  cows,  to  support  a  half- 
million  head  of  buffalo.  They  would  have 
constituted  a  source  of  revenue  for  many 
years  to  come.  Men  spoke  vaguely  of  the 
"lost  herd"  that  lived  in  some  unknown 
spot  and  would  one  day  repopulate  these 
waste  stretches  with  buffalo.  Woodson  could 
see  that  all  this  development  was  for  the 
best ;  there  were  now  homes  where  no  homes 
stood  before.  But  a  vague  uneasiness  assailed 
him,  a  sense  of  something  gone  amiss  with 
a  popular  idol.  Some  way  it  seemed  that 
he  had  been  warned  of  this.  Some  for- 

59 


THE  PASSING   OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

gotten  prophecy  welled  up  out  of  the  past 
to  clamor  for  expression  at  the  threshold 
of  his  consciousness.  It  troubled  him  that 
he  should  not  quite  place  the  thing  and  he 
attempted  to  shake  it  off. 

He  left  his  horses  with  a  cowman  and  held 
on  to  the  east.  The  old  trails  where  once 
the  prairie  schooners  and  the  oxbows  had 
wound  interminably  to  the  far  horizon  were 
no  longer  traveled.  Steel  rails  stretched  away 
in  their  stead;  and  the  creak  of  wheels  and 
leather  and  the  bawls  of  plodding  oxen,  — 
all  these  were  replaced  by  the  rattle  and  roar 
of  freight  cars  and  the  screech  of  the  locomo- 
tives' whistles ;  city  streets  wound  where 
there  had  been  naught  but  dog  towns  on 
blistering  flats. 

Truly  development  was  wonderful  and  he 
rejoiced  with  the  rest  over  this  sweeping 
transformation,  the  swiftest  and  most  com- 
plete reclamation  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
But  again  the  still  small  voice  assailed  him 
from  within  and  whispered  that  a  good  and 
worthy  job  had  been  just  a  trifle  too  well 
done. 

A  cold  fall  storm  was  driving  down  from 
the  nortn  and  overtook  him  in  the  salt- 
marsh  country  of  Western  Kansas.  The 
waterfowl  scurried  ahead  of  it.  Every  pond 
and  slough,  each  broad  prairie  lake  and 

60 


Great  white  cranes  stalked  majestically  in  the 
open  flats.     Page  61. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

marshy  bottom  was  covered  with  members  of 
the  feathered  horde  en  route  to  the  winter 
quarters  on  the  Gulf.  Flock  followed  flock 
in  an  endless  procession,  streaking  the  sky. 
The  prairies  were  covered  with  feeding  geese. 
Great  white  cranes  stalked  majestically  in 
the  open  flats,  traveling  in  bands  of  hundreds, 
and  at  night  the  wild  whoops  of  overhead 
squadrons  almost  drowned  the  clamor  of 
oncoming  hordes  of  geese.  This  evidence  of 
abundance  cheered  him.  He  estimated  that 
he  saw  over  a  million  birds  a  day;  and  he 
reflected  that  everywhere  east  and  west 
of  him  this  great  migration  was  going  on; 
the  east  coast  and  the  west,  the  Mississippi 
fly- way  and  the  course  of  every  inland  river ; 
all  were  experiencing  this  same  deluge  of  birds 
headed  into  the  south.  Nowhere  had  he 
seen  so  much  bird  life  except  during  the 
pigeon  flights  in  the  hardwood  country  of  his 
boyhood  home.  There  he  had  seen  the  skies 
blackened  with  wild  pigeons,  had  seen  limbs 
broken  from  the  trees  by  the  sheer  weight  of 
thousands  of  roosting  birds.  The  shock  of 
finding  the  buffalo  gone  from  the  plains  in  a' 
few  short  years  was  counteracted  by  this 
fresh  evidence  of  plenty. 

It  was  in  Dodge  that  his  trail  crossed  that  of 
Hanson,  a  man  from  his  old  outfit.  Hanson, 
with  a  younger  man  named  Rice,  was  hunting 

61 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

antelope  for  the  hides.  The  two  spoke  of  old 
friends.  Cleve  had  gone  to  the  lumber 
camps  of  the  northwest  coast,  Hanson  in- 
formed, and  McCann  to  the  hardwood  belt 
to  the  east.  They  had  quit  the  hunting. 
Antelope  were  fleet  and  it  was  difficult  to 
stalk  them  in  the  flats.  Hanson  had  known 
the  time  when  all  hands  might  kill  and  skin 
an  average  of  twenty  buffalo  to  the  man  each 
day.  He  now  lamented  the  necessity  of 
hunting  the  wary  pronghorn  for  less  than  a 
dollar  a  hide.  A  man  was  doing  well  to 
average  four  a  day. 

"The  old  days  are  gone,"  he  said.  "Things 
are  different  now.  It 's  hard  pickings  for  a 
man  to  make  a  living  in  times  like  these." 

But  Rice  looked  forth  on  the  world  with  the 
optimism  of  youth.  It  was  a  land  of  plenty 
in  which  he  lived.  He  had  planned  a  hunt 
in  the  hills  of  Western  Colorado  and  urged 
Woodson  to  throw  in  with  them. 

"There  's  millions  of  deer  up  there,"  he 
said.  "They  're  paying  three  dollars  apiece 
for  venison  saddles  at  the  mines.  I  've  seen 
ten  thousand  mule  deer  boiling  through  the 
passes,  all  in  sight  at  once,  when  they  gathered 
from  the  Gore  Range  and  the  Rabbit  Ear  to 
drift  down  to  the  Oak  Hills  for  the  winter. 
There  's  deer  without  end.  I  hunted  up  there 
last  year.  We  loaded  thirty  four-horse  freight 

62 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

wagons  with  deer  saddles,  high  as  we  could 
lash  'em  on,  all  from  a  two-day  kill  in  one 
pass  as  they  came  streaming  down,  a  thou- 
sand to  the  band.  There  's  good  money  in 
meat-hunting  for  the  mines.  You  better 
throw  in  with  us,  Mart,  and  come  along." 

They  urged  their  case  but  Woodson  would 
not  join.  The  rapidity  with  which  old  condi- 
tions had  slipped  past  him  filled  him  with  a 
sense  of  bewilderment.  He  could  not  get 
his  start,  as  he  had  intended,  by  hide-hunting 
on  the  plains.  That  day  had  gone,  and  some 
way  he  could  see  no  future  in  hunting  deer  to 
supply  Denver  and  the  Colorado  mining 
towns  with  meat.  Perhaps  he  would  better 
go  to  the  lumber  camps,  either  east  or  west, 
and  take  up  that  end.  There  was  more 
permanency  to  that.  He  could  not  make  up 
his  mind  and  decided  at  last  to  go  back  to  the 
quiet  hills  of  the  Yellowstone  for  one  final 
look  around  while  making  his  decision. 


63 


VII 

THE  road  loop  had  been  hacked  out  of  the 
hills  so  that  sightseers  might  tour  the  main 
points  of  interest  in  four-horse  coaches.  As 
Mart  Woodson  held  the  reins  over  the  lead 
four  and  led  a  long  file  of  stages  down  toward 
the  basin  of  the  Mammoth  Hot  Springs, 
completing  a  round  started  ten  days  before, 
the  hills  echoed  to  the  strains  of  a  bugle ; 
twinkling  fires  gleamed  in  the  falling  dusk. 
A  troop  of  cavalry  had  pitched  camp  in  the 
basin  and  military  rule  had  supplanted  the 
regime  of  lawlessness. 

A  vague  rule  had  permitted  the  killing 
of  game  to  answer  the  necessities  of  campers 
and  acted  as  an  unrestricted  license  to 
slaughter  everything  that  moved.  Recently 
it  had  been  superseded  by  a  law  prohibiting 
all  hunting  within  the  limits  of  the  reserva- 
tion, but  that  law  was  not  enforced.  Men  en- 
gaged in  killing  for  the  market  stood  on  their 
rights  as  free  men.  Was  not  the  game  the 
property  of  all  and  from  which  each  one  could 
draw  as  he  chose?  Meat  hunters  sold  their 
game  at  good  prices  to  the  permanent  camps 
along  tourist  routes ;  trappers  worked  the 

64 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

country  for  fur  and  gold  seekers  prospected  the 
Park  at  will.  The  beaver  had  disappeared 
from  Falls  River  and  their  fresh  cuttings  were 
few  on  the  Lewis,  the  Bechler  and  the  Snake. 
The  slaughter  went  on  unchecked. 

The  new  commandant  clamped  down  on 
various  offenders  and  forbade  them  the  free- 
dom of  the  Park.  The  cry  was  raised  that 
the  rights  of  free-born  men  were  being  ar- 
bitrarily curtailed  and,  as  always,  this  gained 
a  following.  Hostility  toward  the  new 
regime  smoldered  throughout  the  hills,  but 
the  commandant  calmly  pursued  his  way. 
Buildings  for  quartering  a  few  troopers 
were  erected  at  several  strategic  points  within 
the  reservation  and  the  men  stationed  therein 
set  about  their  long  patrols  to  detect  and 
crush  out  the  abuses  that  had  reigned  supreme 
for  so  long  a  time.  The  troopers  were  un- 
familiar with  the  ways  of  the  hills.  It  was 
a  wild,  rough  tract  they  had  to  guard  and  the 
poachers  were  a  hard  lot  with  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  country.  A  corps  of  civilian 
scouts  was  organized  to  supplement  the  work 
of  the  troopers,  men  recruited  from  among 
those  who  had  roamed  the  country  for  long 
years  before  the  soldiers  came.  It  was  then 
that  the  driver  of  the  lead  coach  crawled 
down  from  his  seat  at  the  end  of  a  trip  and 
presented  himself  before  the  new  commandant. 

65 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

"What 's  the  lookout  for  a  job  as  scout?" 
he  asked.  "I'd  like  to  get  put  on.  I've 
been  driving  the  loop  for  two  years  and 
traveled  this  country  on  and  off  before  there 
was  a  road." 

The  officer  knew  something  of  the  history 
of  the  man  before  him.  It  was  said  that  he 
had  left  his  tracks  from  Clark's  Fork  to  the 
Gallatin,  from  the  Teton  Basin  to  Bridger 
Lake;  that  he  knew  every  square  mile  in 
between  and  well  beyond.  If  only  he  lined 
up  on  the  right  side  this  knowledge  would  be 
invaluable.  But  almost  without  exception 
the  men  who  had  been  long  in  the  country 
were  hostile  to  the  least  suggestion  of  re- 
striction. The  officer  touched  upon  this  fact. 

"How  does  it  happen  that  you  take  the 
opposite  end,"  he  asked,  "when  the  others 
sincerely  feel  that  this  Park  belongs  to  them  ?  " 

"Because  I  feel  that  it  belongs  to  me," 
Woodson  surprisingly  announced. 

"I  see,"  the  officer  observed.  'Your  rights 
against  theirs.  Is  that  the  way  it  is  ?  " 

Woodson  leaned  forward  and  tapped  the 
desk. 

"Listen,  this  Park  is  mine.  It 's  also  a 
fact  that  it  belongs  to  them.  They  claim 
the  right  of  free  men  to  turn  everything  in 
here  to  profit  for  themselves.  I  want  to 
see  it  all  left  here  for  me.  Whenever  a  few 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

men  take  anything  out  of  here  they  're  taking 
a  part  of  something  that  belongs  to  me  - 
and  to  every  other  man  who  calls  himself  an 
American.     That 's  how  it  is." 

The  officer  grasped  something  of  what  the 
Park  meant  to  Woodson.  He  viewed  it  as 
some  great  estate  set  aside  for  him,  —  the 
way  every  American  should  view  it.  He 
was  willing,  even  anxious,  to  share  it,  but 
unalterably  opposed  to  the  removal  of  one 
stick  or  stone.  He  felt  the  actuality  of 
possession,  of  part  ownership  in  every  hill 
and  valley.  As  he  had  followed  lonely  trails 
he  had  reasoned  it  out  so  many  times  that 
he  felt  it  a  tangible  reality.  The  officer 
had  found  the  man  for  whom  he  sought,  The 
blue-eyed  driver  of  the  lead  coach  was  there- 
after missing  from  the  box  and  a  new  chief 
of  Park  Scouts  was  prowling  the  hills  in 
search  of  those  who  would  profit  at  the 
public's  expense. 

Woodson  went  straight  from  headquarters 
to  the  meadow  twenty  miles  away,  where 
he  had  left  his  horses.  He  located  them  but 
before  entering  upon  his  new  duties  he  scaled 
the  summit  of  a  lofty  peak  for  a  sweeping 
survey  of  his  domain.  From  the  bald  crest 
of  Mount  Washburn  the  whole  reservation 
unrolled  before  him.  Those  features  re- 
named since  first  he  saw  them  he  could  now 

67 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

pick  out  and  give  the  more  or  less  applicable 
titles  which  had  in  late  years  been  bestowed 
on  them. 

He  had  seen  the  New  West  while  both  the 
country  and  himself  were  young.  Now,  while 
still  a  young  man  himself,  men  spoke  of  that 
day  in  the  past  tense.  Already  it  was  known 
to  the  world  as  the  Old  West  of  yesterday. 
His  journey  to  the  plains  had  weighed  him 
down.  Future  generations  could  never  see 
"the-old  days  as  he  had  seen  them.  But  now 
his  depression  lifted.  Here,  spread  for  miles 
all  round  him,  was  the  one  best  spot  of  all  the 
great  outdoors,  remaining  the  same  as  Nature 
had  fashioned  it.  And  it  had  been  decreed 
that  so  it  should  always  stand.  This  was 
to  remain  intact,  one  spot  where  men  who  had 
never  known  the  old  days  themselves  might 
come  to  look  upon  things  as  they  had  been. 
And  to  him  this  meant  —  even  more  than  the 
preservation  of  freak  phenomena  set  down  in 
this  far  spot  with  lavish  hand  —  the  retention 
of  naturalness  as  it  had  always  been;  the 
green  of  forested  slopes  unscarred  by  the 
lumberman's  ax;  crystal  streams  unpolluted 
by  the  cities'  drainage,  lakes  never  to  be 
exploited  as  resorts  for  individual  gain;  the 
only  sounds  of  the  hills  those  sounds  of 
Nature's  own  in  her  varying  moods  of  calm 
and  storm,  —  areas  of  silence  and  of  sound, 

68 


Here  the  bighorn  of  the  peaks  gazed  down.     Page  69. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

the  hush  of  prairies  unruffled  by  the  wind,  the 
boom  and  throb  of  waterfalls  pouring  from 
the  lip  of  overhanging  ledges  to  pound  the 
floor  of  the  gorge  below,  all  this  without  the 
roar  of  miners'  blasts  that  jarred  the  foun- 
dation of  the  hills;  animal  life  as  it  had 
been  in  the  long  ago.  Truly  the  origina- 
tors of  the  reservation  had  chosen  well. 

Here  the  bighorn  of  the  peaks  gazed  down 
upon  the  specks  that  were  antelope  of  the 
prairies  grazing  the  broad  bottoms  of  the 
Lamar.  Future  generations,  who  would  re- 
construct the  old  times  by  looking  upon  the 
shaggy  beasts  that  had  roamed  in  millions 
and  furnished  food  for  the  westward  march 
of  the  pioneers  across  the  plains,  could  come 
to  this  spot  and  view  the  largest  herds  of 
wild  buffalo  left  alive,  ranging  in  the  Hayden 
Valley  and  on  the  Madison  and  Pitchstone 
plateaus.  Those  who  would  gaze  still  farther 
into  the  past,  returning  to  the  great  day  of 
the  fur  trade,  might  still  come  and  hear  the 
whack  of  the  beaver's  tail  upon  the  water 
and  view  his  fresh  cuttings  in  the  aspen 
groves,  might  find  mink  and  otter  following 
the  streams  as  the  roving  bands  of  half- 
wild  trappers  had  found  them  a  century 
before.  Here  bobcat  snarled  at  the  badger 
in  the  foothills.  The  howl  of  yellow  prairie 
wolves  lifted  to  the  ears  of  red,  cross  and 

69 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

silver  foxes  that  traveled  the  bald  ridges 
above  timber  line.  Bears  —  black,  brown  and 
grizzly  —  padded  the  pockets  of  the  hills 
where  lynx  and  marten  made  their  tracks 
on  the  timbered  slopes.  The  wolverine,  cache 
and  trap-line  robber  of  the  north,  found 
easy  meat  in  the  victims  left  behind  by  the 
cougar,  the  tawny  killer  of  the  hills.  Mule 
deer  met  the  whitetail  on  the  winter  feeding 
ground  and  there  were  giant  moose  in  the 
beaver  swamps  of  the  Bechler  and  the  Upper 
Yellowstone.  The  clawed  and  furred  of  north 
and  south,  the  horned  and  hoofed  of  mountain 
and  plain  met  here  and  mingled;  and  from 
end  to  end  of  the  reservation  the  whole  hills 
swarmed  with  a  lordly  tribe,  a  summer 
paradise  for  two  hundred  thousand  elk. 

Woodson  had  always  known  that  some 
day  he  would  set  out  to  find  his  niche  in  life 
and  often  he  had  wondered  what  mark  he 
would  leave  upon  the  passing  time.  The 
mark  of  his  prospector's  pick  upon  a  thou- 
sand hills,  the  ashes  of  his  camp  fires  in  the 
valleys  and  the  ax  blazes  of  his  trap  lines  in 
the  timber;  all  these  were  as  perishable  in 
the  face  of  time  as  the  tracks  of  his  webs  in 
the  melting  drifts. 

The  open  breeds  men  of  strength  and 
humility :  the  strength  of  self  -reliance  drawn 
from  the  proven  ability  to  meet  new  and 

70 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

untried  conditions  with  resourcefulness; 
humility  from  the  realization  of  man's  pitiful 
insignificance  in  the  whole  of  Nature's  scheme 
of  things.  Woodson  knew  himself  a  pigmy, 
of  little  more  importance  than  an  ant;  knew 
that  whatever  mark  he  might  leave,  no  matter 
how  deep-grooved  in  his  day,  would  swiftly 
fade  and  eventually  be  erased  by  that  leveling 
process  of  the  ages  which  defies  the  most 
egotistical  endeavors  of  man  to  rear  some 
edifice  through  which  his  individuality  shall 
linger  long  after  his  mortal  hulk  has  passed. 
Therefore  the  making  of  his  own  personal 
mark  must,  for  the  present,  be  relegated  to 
second  place  while  he  helped  perpetuate 
this  heritage  of  future  generations  in  all  its 
naturalness.  Whatever  tithe  he  had  to  give 
them  must  consist  of  that. 

He  dropped  to  the  meadow  and  caught  a 
bay  mare,  the  third  descended  in  a  straight 
line  from  Tom  North's  old  favorite,  the 
last  gift  of  his  friend,  and  with  a  led  horse 
packed  with  bed  roll  and  supplies  he  entered 
upon  his  round  of  duty.  For  a  month  after 
his  appointment  the  commandant  heard  no 
word  of  the  whereabouts  of  his  new  chief 
scout. 

Woodson's  course  lay  up  the  East  Fork 
of  the  Yellowstone,  recently  renamed  Lamar, 
round  its  sweeping  curve  under  the  shadow 

71 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

of  the  Absaroka  Peaks,  across  the  divide  to  the 
head  of  the  Pelican  and  down  that  stream  to 
the  Yellowstone.  It  seemed  that  Nature 
—  not  quite  content  with  thus  gathering 
together  in  one  spot  the  most  magnificent 
peaks  and  canyons,  the  most  beautiful  lakes 
and  rivers  in  the  world  and  adding  an  un- 
rivaled assortment  of  freaks  and  oddities  — 
had  been  intent  upon  bringing  in  a  touch  of 
the  wide  plains  by  way  of  contrast.  Woodson 
sat  his  horse  on  the  shoulder  of  a  hill  and 
gazed  off  across  the  rolling  sweep  of  Hay  den 
Valley.  Except  for  the  timbered  hills  in  the 
distance  he  could  imagine  himself  once  more 
on  the  limitless  prairies  of  the  Arkansas  and 
the  Platte.  And  as  he  looked  there  came 
toward  him  a  herd  of  buffalo  to  lend  a  touch 
of  reality  to  the  illusion. 

Some  were  scattered  and  grazed  as  they 
came.  Others  stood  in  close-packed  bunches 
or  bedded  down  in  groups.  His  mind  flashed 
back  to  a  day  not  many  years  past  when  he 
had  sat  with  old  Tom  North  and  viewed  a 
similar  scene  on  a  grander  scale  while  the  vast 
horde  streamed  past  for  hours  without  a  break. 
As  he  rode  down  through  the  bottoms  he 
found  scores  of  bull  wallows  such  as  had  pit- 
marked  the  plains  of  Dodge.  He  held  to  no 
road  or  trail  but  moved  west  across  the 
reservations,  seeking  the  broad  open  stretches. 

72 


THE  PASSING   OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Three  days  he  spent  on  the  Madison  Plateau, 
working  south  to  the  Pitchstone  and  visiting 
the  Falls  River  Meadows  and  the  Bechler. 
Then,  after  perhaps  a  month,  he  appeared 
before  the  commandant. 

"I  've  made  a  count  of  the  buffalo,"  he 
said.  "I  know  where  every  little  bunch 
is  holding  out.  There 's  some  thirty-eight 
hundred  head  in  the  Park.  The  number  won't 
vary  fifty  either  way.  It 's  likely  those  are  the 
only  buffalo  left  running  wild  in  the  world." 

The  officer  nodded  and  together  they 
planned  the  future  of  this  last  remnant  of  a 
vanishing  race. 

"We've  thousands  of  the  other  varieties 
of  game,"  the  commandant  said.  "The 
others  will  take  care  of  themselves.  We  '11 
have  to  build  this  buffalo  herd  up  to  twenty 
thousand  head.  I  'm  going  to  make  that 
your  special  charge." 

Woodson  knew  this  would  be  no  easy  task  ; 
for  even  now,  only  five  years  after  the  last 
big  hide-hunting  campaign,  men  spoke  of 
the  buffalo  in  the  past  tense  as  a  relic  of  other 
days ;  and,  as  relics  have  value,  the  hides 
of  the  once  despised  beasts,  instead  of  going 
at  a  dollar  apiece,  had  risen  in  price  till  a 
hundred  dollars  or  more  was  the  quotation 
on  every  robe.  Poachers  would  take  any 
chance  for  such  a  fancy  price. 

73 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

The  new  chief  of  scouts  avoided  even  the 
game  trails  as  he  headed  for  the  Madison 
Plateau  and  made  his  secret  camp  in  a  bunch 
of  jack  pines.  The  first  snowfall  of  the 
season  caught  him  there.  For  a  week  he 
scouted  the  country  for  fresh  horse  tracks, 
his  ears  alert  for  the  sound  of  a  distant  rifle 
shot,  any  sign  which  would  indicate  that 
men  worked  on  the  Madison  herd.  When 
the  soft  snow  had  melted  from  the  open 
stretches  he  moved  his  camp  south  to  the 
Bechler. 

The  second  day  of  his  scouting  he  crossed 
the  trail  of  a  dozen  horses.  This  sign  was 
some  ten  days  old,  made  before  the  snow. 
The  storm  had  blotted  it  in  spots  and  in 
the  bottoms  it  had  been  tramped  out  by  elk. 
It  led  across  Falls  River  Basin  towards  the 
west  line  of  the  Park  and  the  scout  knew 
that  poachers  had  made  their  kill  and  de- 
parted with  the  spoils.  He  took  the  back 
track  of  the  horses,  frequently  losing  it  and 
patiently  circling  to  pick  it  up.  Twice  the 
trail  of  a  single  shod  horse,  made  since  the 
snow,  crossed  the  faint  sign  he  followed.  Just 
at  dusk  his  perseverance  was  rewarded  by 
the  find  of  a  carcass,  that  of  an  old  buffalo  bull, 
and  beyond  it,  strung  out  through  the  bottoms 
for  three  hundred  yards,  lay  twenty  more. 
The  hunters  had  downed  five  old  cows,  two 
'  74 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

bulls  and  fourteen  head  of  young  stuff  — 
yearlings  and  twa-year-olds  —  stripped  off 
the  hides  and  made  good  their  escape.  The 
dim  footprints  round  the  scene  of  the  skin- 
ning indicated  that  only  two  men  had  been 
concerned  in  it. 

The  scout  moved  on,  and  again  the  tracks 
of  a  single  horse  cut  the  poacher's  trail.  Lee 
Page,  a  park  scout,  had  been  instructed  to 
pitch  his  camp  two  miles  above  the  mouth 
of  Proposition  and  guard  the  Bechler  and 
Falls  River  country.  Woodson  headed  his 
horse  up  Falls  River  and  crossed  over  to 
Prosposition,  stayed  on  that  stream  for  the 
night,  and  the  following  day  moved  down 
its  course  to  come  upon  Page's  camp  from  the 
south. 

The  trail  of  that  single  horse  which  showed 
so  frequently  was  in  the  background  of  Wood- 
son's  thoughts  as  he  rode  up.  Page  had  been 
long  without  human  society  and  was  glad 
to  have  the  company  of  his  chief. 

"Which  way  did  you  come  in?"  he 
asked,  after  urging  that  Woodson  stay  over 
night. 

"There 's  a  soldier  camp  over  on  the 
Lewis,"  Woodson  said.  "Sergeant  and  six 
men.  I  've  been  there  for  ten  days,  helping 
them  get  the  country  located  so  they  could 
patrol  it  alone.  Just  dropped  over  to  see 

75 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD   WEST 

how    things    were    with    you.     Any    report 
you  want  to  send  when  I  go  in  ?  " 

Page  shook  his  head. 

"Not  a  syllable,"  he  said.  "Everything 
dead  quiet." 

"Have  you  watched  the  bottoms  close  ?" 

"Raked  'em  from  end  to  end,"  said  Page. 
His  eyes  met  Woodson's  without  a  flicker. 
"Covered  every  square  mile  between  here  and 
both  lines." 

"Then  I  won't  bother  to  ride  that  country 
myself,"  Woodson  decided.  "If  you  're  sure 
you  covered  it  thorough." 

"Dead  sure,"  stated  Page.  "But  I'll 
ride  it  with  you  if  you  say  the  word.  I  'd 
like  right  well  to  have  you  stay  over  a  few 
days  for  company.  What  say  ?" 

"About  all  I  can  do  is  to  make  every  scout 
camp  and  take  in  the  reports,"  Woodson  in- 
formed. "  I  have  to  make  the  whole  rounds  and 
it  will  likely  be  a  month  before  I  see  Mammoth 
again.  I  '11  have  to  ramble  on  to-morrow." 

He  stayed  over  night  with  Page  and  in 
the  morning  packed  for  his  departure. 

"Where  to  from  here?"  Page  asked. 

"East  to  the  Snake,"  said  Woodson. 
"Then  up  the  Yellowstone  to  the  Thorofare; 
back  and  out  round  above  the  Lake,  up  the 
Pelican  and  down  Lamar.  I  '11  be  back  this 
way  again  in  a  month." 

76 


THE   PASSING   OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

He  swung  to  the  saddle  and  headed  the 
brown  mare  upstream. 

Two  days  later,  in  the  gray  of  early  morn- 
ing, irregular  spurts  of  shooting  drifted  from 
the  Falls  River  Meadows.  Three  miles  below 
Page's  camp  two  men  set  about  skinning 
out  seventeen  head  of  buffalo  that  were 
scattered  through  the  bottom.  Their  work 
was  unhurried  but  they  kept  their  guns 
always  close  at  hand.  They  peeled  the  hides 
from  two  that  had  dropped  well  out  in  the 
open,  then  chose  for  the  third  an  old  bull 
that  lay  within  a  few  yards  of  one  of  the 
numerous  tongues  of  willows  that  intersected 
the  swampy  bottoms. 

Both  men  straightened  swiftly  as  a  voice 
spoke  from  behind  them. 

"  Hello,"  it  greeted.  They  turned  and 
looked  into  the  muzzle  of  a  rifle  protruding 
from  the  willow  point. 

"Lift  'em,"  Woodson  said.  "The  game  's 
up,  boys.  Move  away  from  your  guns." 

They  moved,  and  the  scout  possessed  him- 
self of  the  rifles  that  leaned  against  a  bush. 

" Where  's  your  outfit?"  he  demanded. 

"Half  a  mile  down  country  in  that  patch 
of  timber,"  one  man  volunteered.  "Two 
saddle  horses  and  six  packs." 

"You  can  ride  the  two  and  we'll  throw 
the  pack  stuff  loose,"  Woodson  said. 

77 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

"They  '11  drift  out  of  the  Park  and  head  for 
home.  We  '11  go  past  that  way  as  soon  as 
I  get  my  own  pair." 

An  hour  later  they  rode  up  to  Page's 
camp. 

'You  made  a  real  rapid  trip,"  Page  greeted. 
"If  you  covered  all  that  country  you  was 
mentioning.  How  come  ?  " 

"I  turned  back  from  the  Lewis  to  bring 
you  a  message  from  the  soldier  camp.  You  're 
to  report  in  at  Mammoth.  They  're  going 
to  transfer  you  to  Lamar." 

"How'd  you  happen  to  come  in  from  the 
west  —  if  you  're  coming  back  from  the 
Lewis  ?  "  Page  inquired. 

"I  dropped  down  Mountain  Ash  Creek  by 
mistake.  I  don't  know  this  southwest  corner 
very  well,"  the  chief  scout  confessed.  "So  I 
swung  back  from  the  mouth.  You  'd  better 
start  packing  and  come  along  in  with  us. 
These  boys  are  going  that  way  themselves." 

Then,  apparently  for  the  first  time,  Page 
let  his  eyes  rest  on  the  two  extra  rifles  thrust 
under  the  lash  ropes  of  the  pack,  on  the  empty 
saddle  scabbards  slung  beneath  the  knees  of 
the  other  two  men. 

"What 'sup?  "he  asked. 

"They  downed  seventeen  head  a  couple  of 
miles  below,"  Woodson  said.  :<You  can  help 
me  take  them  in." 

78 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

\ 

"I  '11  help  you,  fast  enough,"  Page  agreed. 
4 'And  help  hand  'em  when  we  reach  the  other 
end."  His  face  darkened  with  a  frown  as  he 
regarded  the  two  culprits  caught  red-handed 
in  his  territory.  "Funny,  though,"  he  com- 
mented, "that  I  didn't  hear  the  shooting  - 
not  one  single  shot." 

"  Yes,"  Woodson  agreed.  "  Likely  the  wind 
was  wrong." 

Woodson  dismounted  and  kept  an  eye  on 
the  two  men  while  Page  struck  camp  and 
lashed  his  outfit  on  a  pack  horse.  The  four 
men  filed  back  the  way  they  had  come,  the 
two  poachers  riding  first,  Page  following,  while 
Woodson  brought  up  the  rear.  When  some- 
thing over  a  hundred  yards  from  the  deserted 
camp  Woodson  pulled  up  his  horse. 

"I  left  my  knife,"  he  said.  "It 's  sticking 
in  that  log  that  laid  alongside  your  teepee  — 
the  one  I  was  sitting  on.  If  you  'd  get  it  for 
me  I  'd  be  right  obliged.  I  'd  go  myself  only 
the  responsibility  is  mostly  mine  and  I  don't 
want  this  pair  out  from  under  my  eye."  He 
reached  for  the  reins  as  Page  turned  his  horses. 

"I'll  hold  them,"  he  offered.  "You  can 
just  step  back  on  foot." 

Page  did  not  question  this  queer  order  of 
his  chief  but  dropped  from  the  saddle  and 
disappeared  over  the  little  rise  toward  the 
missing  knife. 

79 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

'You  two  ride  on  ahead  into  that  open 
park,"  Woodson  instructed  the  prisoners, 
"  and  stop  right  in  its  middle.  I  '11  be  looking 
square  at  you  all  the  time.  I  '11  just  wait 
here." 

Apparently  he  changed  his  mind,  for  after 
a  moment  he  followed  them  and  stopped  in 
the  park,  where  Page  found  him  when  he  re- 
turned with  the  knife.  The  timber  played 
out  and  they  rode  down  the  open,  grassy 
bottom  and  angled  northwest  across  Falls 
River  Basin  to  the  Bechler.  They  crossed 
that  stream  and  held  on  through  its  expansive 
meadows  till  they  came  to  the  first  roll  of  the 
hills  that  mounted  toward  the  Madison  Pla- 
teau and  commenced  the  climb.  The  poachers 
seemed  but  little  concerned  over  their  capture. 
Woodson  seldom  spoke,  but  Page  at  intervals 
addressed  the  two  and  predicted  a  speedy 
hanging,  once  their  destination  had  been 
reached.  They  crossed  out  over  the  broad 
flat  top  of  the  Continental  Divide  and  pitched 
their  night  camp  at  Summit  Lake.  From 
this  point  a  well  beaten  trail  led  across  and 
intersected  the  wagon  road  on  the  Firehole. 

Woodson  stood  first  guard,  sitting  with  his 
back  against  a  tree  and  occasionally  re- 
plenishing the  fire  while  the  others  slept.  He 
did  not  rouse  Page  when  it  was  time  for  him 
to  go  on  guard.  Twice  Page  raised  his  head 

80 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

and  encountered  the  casual  stare  of  his  chief, 
but  on  both  occasions  Woodson  assured  him 
that  the  time  had  not  come  for  him  to  stand 
his  turn.  Eventually  Page  rose  and  stretched. 

"You  're  giving  me  the  best  of  it,"  he  in- 
sisted. "Turn  in  and  gather  a  few  winks. 
I  '11  take  balance  of  the  night." 

"We  '11  have  easy  trails  to-morrow  and 
make  a  long  pack,"  Woodson  prophesied,  as 
he  settled  into  his  blankets.  :<  You  '11  have 
to  wake  me  if  you  need  a  hand.  I  most 
generally  sleep  sound." 

An  hour  passed.  The  fire  flickered  low 
and  only  the  dying  coals  shed  a  dim  glow  over 
the  sleeping  figures.  Page  sagged  against  the 
trunk  of  a  spruce,  his  head  sunk  on  his  chest, 
apparently  asleep.  One  of  the  poachers  rose 
on  his  elbow  and  inspected  Woodson,  then  sat 
up  and  touched  his  companion,  who  was 
instantly  alert.  He  rose  to  his  knees,  drop- 
ping his  blankets  without  a  sound.  Both  men 
whirled  as  Woodson  spoke. 

"Hello,"  he  said.  "What's  going  on?" 
His  rifle  lay  in  plain  view  of  them,  within  easy 
reach  of  his  hand,  but  he  did  not  reach  out 
for  it.  He  sat  with  his  knees  drawn  up  before 
him,  and  in  the  dip  formed  between  knees  and 
body  the  nose  of  a  pistol  menaced  the  two 
men.  "Restless,  boys?  Page  isn't  much  of 
a  hand  to  keep  up  a  fire." 

81 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

"Not  much,"  Page  confessed.  He  had 
roused  suddenly  from  his  feigned  slumber  and 
his  rifle  was  trained  steadily  on  Woodson's 
chest.  "Sit  tight,"  he  admonished,  his  eye 
on  Woodson's  rifle.  "It 's  all  up  any  time 
you  reach  for  that  gun.  I  guess  you  know, 
likely,  that  I  was  cutting  in  with  the  boys. 
It  struck  me  that  way  when  you  turned  up  so 
sudden,  bringing  them  in  from  the  west  when 
you  'd  headed  due  east  two  days  back." 

"I  doubled  and  camped  right  over  the 
ridge  from  you,"  Woodson  admitted.  "I  was 
wondering  about  you  —  a  little." 

"Well,  now  you  know  for  sure,"  Page  re- 
turned. "  I  was  counting  on  the  boys  to  make 
a  run  for  it  while  I  was  supposed  to  be  asleep. 
Then  I  could  have  kept  on  working  from  the 
inside.  But  it  don't  matter  any,  to  speak  of. 
One  of  you  get  Mart's  gun,"  he  instructed  the 
prisoners.  "Get  your  stuff  together  and 
we  '11  be  off." 

The  shadow  of  Woodson's  knees  shrouded 
the  forty-five  in  his  lap.  Page  could  not  see  it. 

"He  's  got  a  gun  in  his  lap,  Lee,"  one  of  the 
two  men  warned. 

Page's  eyes  hardened  with  purpose. 

"Lift  'em ;  quick, "  he  ordered. 

Woodson  shook  his  head. 

"I  '11  have  to  put  you  under  arrest  and  take 
you  in,"  he  stated  mildly.  He  slowly  raised 

82 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

the  gun  into  Page's  field  of  view.  Page's 
hand  tightened  on  the  grip  of  his  rifle  and  the 
hammer  clicked  hollowly  on  an  empty 
chamber. 

" No  use,  Lee,"  Woodson  said.  "I  emptied 
her  while  you  went  back  after  my  knife,  and 
I  've  noticed  particular  all  day  to  see  that  you 
did  n't  observe  the  fact  and  reload." 

Page  laughed  shortly  and  leaned  his  useless 
rifle  against  a  tree. 

"All  right.  But  what 's  the  use  of  taking 
us  in  ?  "  he  demanded.  "  They  can't  do  a  thing 
to  us  and  they  know  it.  We  're  within  our 
rights.  The  game  is  free  for  any  that  '11  take 
it  and  there  's  no  law  that  can  deprive  a  free 
man  of  what  belongs  to  him." 

"  But  you  're  taking  something  that  belongs 
to  me,"  Woodson  argued.  "A  share  of  every- 
thing in  this  reservation  is  mine." 

"Then  declare  yourself,"  Page  offered. 
"Name  your  share  and  we'll  settle  and  be 
on  our  way." 

"But  I  'm  representing  a  good  many  mil- 
lion folks,"  the  scout  pointed  out.  "Every 
one  of  'em  has  an  interest  in  those  buffalo 
hides.  Did  you  ever  figure  it  that  way  ?  " 

"Never  did,"  Page  confessed.  "Not  yet! 
You  '11  find  out,  and  that  right  soon,  that 
you  're  on  the  wrong  end  of  the  game  if  you 
keep  at  this  sort  of  thing." 

83 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

"Maybe  so,"  said  Woodson.  "You  get 
back  into  your  blankets  and  I  '11  sit  up.  It 's 
near  morning  now,  so  I  '11  try  and  stay 
awake." 

Lee  Page  and  the  two  Watsons  were  found 
guilty  of  illegally  killing  buffalo  in  the  Yellow- 
stone. The  commandant  formally  ordered 
that  they  be  conducted  to  the  line  and  for- 
bidden the  privileges  of  the  Park. 

The  chief  scout  was  puzzled,  filled  with  a 
sense  of  justice  gone  astray. 

"What 's  to  hinder  them  from  coming  back 
inside?"  he  demanded. 

The  officer  frowned  and  shook  his  head 
regretfully. 

"Not  one  damn  thing!"  he  stated.  "Not 
one  thing  in  the  world.  There's  no  penalty 
cited  in  the  law  forbidding  the  killing  of 
buffalo  in  the  Park;  only  the  provision  that 
violators  shall  be  sent  outside  the  limits  of 
the  reservation." 

Woodson  faced  his  chief. 

"That's  a  poor  law,"  he  stated  bluntly. 
"Mighty  poor." 

"Rotten,"  the  officer  agreed.  "We  've  got 
to  get  that  changed;  get  a  real  law  passed. 
In  the  meantime  we  '11  do  the  best  we  can. 
At  least  you  can  worry  them  and  cut  their 
operations  down  till  after  we  get  a  penalty 
provided  for  such  as  the  three  you  just  brought 

84 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

in.  Then  we  can  do  some  constructive  work. 
It 's  so  clear  that  they  can't  help  but  see  the 
necessity  for  an  effective  law  and  pass  it. 
It  won't  be  long." 


85 


vm 

RAILROADS  had  tapped  the  near-by  country 
and  made  the  reservation  of  the  Yellowstone 
more  accessible.  Thousands  of  sightseers 
toured  the  road  loop  annually  to  look  upon  the 
spouting  geysers,  simmering  paint  pots  and 
vats  of  stewing  mud. 

Between  these  main  points  of  interest  the 
passengers  drank  in  the  naturalness  of  their 
surroundings.  Except  for  the  road,  the  one 
slender  tentacle  of  civilization  stretching 
through  the  wilderness,  there  were  no  works  of 
man.  Here  all  was  Nature's  own,  standing 
as  she  had  fashioned  it.  The  sightseers 
scanned  the  meadows  and  open  sidehills  along 
their  route  for  a  sign  of  game,  for  the  game 
of  other  parts  was  going  fast  and  here  the  last 
big  herds  were  making  their  final  stand. 

There  was  never  a  coach  that  made  the 
loop  but  what  it  contained  at  least  one  pas- 
senger who  persistently  inquired  about  the 
range  of  the  buffalo,  eager  for  a  sight  of  the 
last  few  of  the  animals  that  had  played  such 
historic  part  in  the  early  day  of  the  plains. 
Some  drivers  pointed  toward  the  far  heights 

86 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

of  the  Madison  Plateau  and  informed  their 
charges  that  buffalo  ranged  in  thousands  on 
those  broad  table-lands.  Others  swept  a 
comprehensive  arm  up  the  reaches  of  the 
Hayden  Valley  and  surmised  that  the  great 
droves  that  quartered  there  had  just  moved 
out  of  sight  behind  some  intervening  wave  of 
ground.  A  few  chose  the  Pelican  or  the 
Lamar  as  the  designated  stamping  grounds 
of  vast  bands,  always,  unfortunately,  drifted 
beyond  view  just  prior  to  the  passing  of  the 
coaches.  And  so,  while  many  regretted  not 
actually  sighting  them,  the  majority  were 
more  or  less  content  to  carry  to  their  friends 
the  tidings  that  the  Yellowstone  bands  were 
on  the  increase  and  faring  well. 

But  Mart  Woodson  knew  that  the  herds 
did  not  increase.  Superintendents  had  come 
and  gone  but  Woodson,  Park  scout,  remained. 
The  first  commandant  had  gripped  his  hand 
in  parting. 

"Stay  with  it,  Mart,"  he  had  urged.  "You 
have  a  big  job  here ;  bigger  than  you  know." 

The  departing  officer  had  dwelt  upon  the 
importance  of  the  work  in  hand.  The  per- 
petuation of  the  wild  buffalo  herd  rested  with 
one  man.  What  more  could  a  man  ask  than 
to  have  his  name  go  down  to  posterity  as  the 
preserver  of  a  vanishing  race,  he  had  pointed 
out ;  and  Woodson  had  promised  to  stay  till 

87 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

the  herd  should  be  built  up  to  ten  thousand 
head  and  the  necessary  protective  laws  were 
passed. 

As  the  Park  scout  rode  slowly  along  the 
Turkeypen  Trail  he  reflected  that  the  coming 
of  the  law  was  slow  indeed.  For  more  than 
a  decade  the  flimsy  ruling  had  stood  un- 
changed. His  first  high  hope  of  associating 
his  name  with  the  preservation  of  his  special 
charges  had  waned  from  constant  discourage- 
ments. He  could  not  do  it  without  help  and 
the  apparent  lethargy  of  the  people  weighed 
upon  his  mind.  His  was  a  thankless  task. 

"This  Park  belongs  to  them  but  they  don't 
concern  themselves  over  what 's  happening 
to  it,  Teton,"  he  told  the  horse  he  rode. 

Teton,  the  young  gelding,  was  descended 
straight  from  old  Tom  North's  favorite  mare. 
He  was  the  last  of  his  line,  as  truly  a  mountain 
horse  as  his  owner  was  a  mountain  man. 
Teton  tilted  one  ear  sidewise  and  back 
toward  the  sound  of  his  master's  voice.  He 
had  heard  this  same  complaint  rather  fre- 
quently of  late.  Woodson  had  endeavored 
to  fathom  the  reason  for  this  general  indiffer- 
ence toward  the  looting  of  the  Park  and  had 
at  last  attributed  it  to  the  misinformation, 
to  the  popular  fallacy  that  all  was  protected 
as  long  as  two  troops  of  cavalry  patrolled  the 
trails  of  the  Yellowstone.  But  Woodson 

88 


THE   PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

felt  that  the  soldiers  were  of  small  avail. 
New  troops  were  frequently  brought  in  to 
replace  those  who  had  spent  one  or  more 
rigorous  winters  in  the  high  country.  De- 
tails were  continually  transferred  from  one 
post  to  the  next,  shifted  again  before  they 
were  able  to  do  more  than  learn  the  beaten 
trails  over  part  of  their  territory.  What 
patrols  they  made  were  along  well-defined 
lines  of  travel.  The  poachers  were  men  well- 
versed  in  the  ways  of  the  hills  and  avoided 
these  highways.  Woodson  himself  scoured 
every  isolated  corner  of  his  domain.  He 
penetrated  the  wild  heights  of  the  Absarokas 
in  the  dead  of  winter,  the  swamps  of  the 
Bechler  and  the  head  of  the  Yellowstone  when 
the  whole  country  was  a  quivering  morass 
from  the  melting  drifts  of  spring.  He  had 
come  to  play  a  lone  hand  and  had  grown 
secretive  in  his  habits,  making  frequent  doubles 
and  detours  to  drop  in  unexpectedly  upon 
some  outlying  soldier  station  or  camp  of  Park 
scouts;  for  there  had  been  other  defections 
similar  to  that  of  Page,  mainly  among  the 
soldiery,  but  a  few  also  among  the  ranks  of 
his  own  men.  Yet  he  had  found  that  he  could 
rely  for  able  assistance  only  upon  the  handful 
of  civilian  scouts,  for  the  soldiers  were  never 
left  in  one  spot  for  a  sufficient  period  to  learn 
the  country.  The  records  proved  that  con- 

89 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD   WEST 

clusively,  he  reflected,  as  he  checked  them 
off  in  his  mind.  He  himself  had  made 
seventy -three  arrests  unaided ;  twelve  more 
with  the  assistance  of  other  men.  The  rest 
of  the  scouts  had  made  twice  that  many 
among  them,  while  all  the  hundreds  of 
troopers  that  had  been  stationed  at  one  time 
or  another  in  the  Park  were  credited  with 
but  twenty-odd  arrests.  Yet,  for  all  that, 
each  new  commandant  bent  his  energies 
toward  materially  increasing  the  military 
establishment  of  the  Park. 

"This  is  the  wrong  system  we  've  got  here, 
Teton,"  Woodson  said;  "in  spite  of  popular 
opinion  to  the  contrary.  Every  superinten- 
dent forgets  the  importance  of  preserving 
naturalness  but  instead  settles  right  down  in 
earnest  to  build  more  military  establishments. 
In  the  end  they  '11  have  one  big  fort  covering 
all  these  hills  if  this  goes  on.  The  comman- 
dants aren't  at  fault  themselves.  Their  hearts 
are  in  their  calling.  That 's  the  reason  why 
they  're  successful  soldiers ;  because  military 
matters  come  first  with  them.  The  same  if 
a  cowman  run  the  reservation.  It  would 
look  best  to  him  with  a  bunch  of  cows  feeding 
in  every  bottom.  A  lumberman,  if  he  was  in 
control,  would  dwell  upon  the  advisability  of 
logging  crews  and  sawmills.  Each  man  to 
his  own  ideas.  The  sincere  conviction  that 

90 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

what  looks  best  to  him  —  his  own  pet  occu- 
pation —  is  best  for  all ;  that 's  what  puts 
him  at  the  head  of  his  line.  This  Park  would 
look  best  to  a  soldier  if  it  was  covered  with 
parade  grounds  and  barracks  from  end  to 
end ;  but  the  question  in  my  mind  is  whether 
it  would  n't  be  better  suited  to  the  tastes  of 
the  millions  it  was  set  aside  for  if  it  was 
covered  with  the  things  Nature  put  here  on 
the  start." 

It  had  been  impressed  upon  the  scout's 
mind  of  late  that  he  had  failed  in  his  allotted 
task.  Instead  of  building  up  the  herds  he 
had  seen  them  diminish  in  numbers  year  by 
year.  When  the  two  Watsons  cleaned  out 
the  Bechler  herd  to  the  last  hoof  in  one 
spectacular  foray  he  had  been  confident  that 
this  loss  would  rouse  to  action  those  who 
made  the  laws.  Surely  the  people  would  rise 
up  and  insist  that  this  loss  of  their  property 
must  cease.  He  had  waited  eagerly  for  the 
news  but  no  news  came.  Then,  within  a 
year,  the  Radey  boys  and  Mitchells  killed 
seventy-six  head  of  buffalo  on  the  Madison 
Plateau  in  a  single  day.  This  caused  not 
even  a  ripple  of  comment  outside  the  limits 
of  the  Park  itself. 

Wroodson's  discouragement  mounted  in  the 
face  of  this  general  apathy.  He  was  well 
past  forty  now  and  had  achieved  absolutely 

91 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

nothing  of  lasting  benefit.  His  was  a  losing 
game  and  he  made  a  definite  decision  to  start 
out  for  himself.  During  the  coming  winter 
he  would  gather  his  few  personal  effects,  at 
present  scattered  throughout  the  reservation, 
and  the  following  spring  he  would  depart. 
In  the  background  of  his  mind  there  had 
always  been  the  purpose  to  return  some  day 
to  the  home  of  his  youth.  The  past  few  years, 
during  which  the  full  realization  of  the  hope- 
lessness of  his  present  task  had  come  to  him, 
had  strengthened  this  purpose  and  the  desire 
to  revisit  early  scenes  grew  upon  him.  It  is 
always  those  men  who  wander  farthest  and 
longest  that  treasure  in  their  hearts  the  most 
cherished  pictures  of  the  home  they  have  left 
behind.  He  would  see  the  hardwood  hills  in 
autumn.  Then  he  would  return  to  the  west 
coast  and  once  more  roam  the  great  forest 
he  had  seen  but  once ;  the  land  of  giant  trees, 
their  tops  roofing  the  forest  floor  for  a  hundred 
miles  without  a  break;  the  wood  of  deep 
silences  where  even  the  voices  of  the  wild 
things  were  subdued.  In  one  of  these  favored 
lands  he  would  find  some  calling  upon  which 
to  bend  his  energies.  So  throughout  the  fall 
and  early  winter  he  planned  for  spring  and 
with  the  coming  of  heavy  snows  he  set  forth 
to  gather  his  effects  from  various  caches  and 
secret  camps  throughout  the  Park. 

92 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

He  made  no  effort  to  search  for  evidence  of 
looters  operating  inside  the  line.  It  would 
be  useless  to  take  them  in.  Three  times  he 
had  conducted  Lee  Page  to  headquarters, 
caught  red-handed  in  the  act  of  skinning 
buffalo  or  lifting  trapped  beaver  from  the 
streams.  Twice  he  had  brought  in  the  two 
Watsons  for  the  same  offense ;  other  men  by 
the  score.  In  each  instance  the  various 
officers  in  charge,  powerless  to  do  more,  had 
solemnly  warned  the  offenders  to  remain 
outside  the  limits  of  the  Park.  Woodson's 
own  interest  in  striving  to  build  up  the  Yellow- 
stone herds  had  waned.  His  earliest  re- 
flections had  centered  on  the  unlimited  plenty 
of  his  native  land,  a  wealth  of  natural  re- 
sources that  had  overwhelmed  his  youthful 
imagination ;  and  as  a  consequence  his  nature 
was  not  to  be  satisfied  with  a  remnant  of 
vanished  abundance,  but  instead  demanded 
lavish  profusion  of  anything  in  which  his 
interest  centered.  So  now  the  sight  of  an  old 
buffalo  bull  roused  only  his  pity  for  the  last 
few  stragglers  of  a  vanishing  breed.  It  was 
but  natural,  in  view  of  this  fact,  that  for 
years  his  main  interest  had,  almost  uncon- 
sciously, been  transferred  to  the  elk.  For 
these  most  noble  monarchs  of  all  antlered 
game  still  ranged  the  hills  in  bands  of  thou- 
sands, their  numbers  apparently  undiminished. 

93 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD   WEST 

There  would  always  be  elk  in  the  hills,  he 
reflected,  and  with  this  knowledge  he  would 
be  content. 

By  careful  questioning  of  some  of  the  thou- 
sands of  sightseers  who  had  toured  the  Park 
the  preceding  summer,  he  had  learned  that 
the  general  apathy  as  to  what  transpired  in 
the  Park  was  in  reality  not  so  much  indiffer- 
ence as  lack  of  adequate  information.  No 
news  of  the  big  kills  on  the  Bechler  and  the 
Madison,  in  the  Hay  den  Valley  or  the  Lamar, 
had  reached  the  outside  world.  No  man  had 
heard  of  the  organized  raid  —  launched  with 
intent  to  pick  out  tons  of  the  delicate  speci- 
mens of  flowers  and  shrubs  of  a  bygone  age 
preserved  in  the  petrified  forest,  the  only 
specimens  of  this  kind  in  the  world  —  that 
would  have  succeeded  but  for  Woodson's 
timely  and  single-handed  intervention,  which, 
incidentally,  had  netted  him  a  bullet  in  the 
thigh,  another  through  the  shoulder  and  the 
loss  of  the  brown  mare,  Teton's  mother,  shot 
through  the  lungs.  The  authorities,  with 
that  delicate  thoughtfulness  for  the  people's 
welfare  so  characteristic  of  all  political  minds, 
had  decided  not  to  harass  the  sensibilities  of 
the  voter  with  these  distressing  details  of  the 
looting  of  his  property.  All  this  Woodson 
knew;  but  his  was  a  small,  unknown  voice 
speaking  from  the  wilderness,  and  he  had  no 

94 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

way  of  diffusing  his  knowledge  where  it  would 
be  of  the  least  avail. 

The  scout  traveled  less  than  formerly.  He 
spent  days  on  some  favorite  ridge  or  point 
affording  a  good  view  and  dreamed  great 
dreams  of  the  things  he  would  do  when  he 
reached  the  outside  world  where  all  was  a 
mad  rush  of  development.  He  built  railroads 
through  the  hills  and  spanned  sheer  canyons 
with  trestles  of  concrete  and  steel,  erected 
giant  warehouses  and  filled  them  with  the 
treasures  of  the  world;  planned  cities  of  his 
own  on  sites  which  he  felt  had  been  overlooked 
and  waited  only  for  his  coming.  Soon  he 
would  be  part  of  it  instead  of  apart  from  it. 
And  while  he  planned  an  early  winter  shut 
down  over  the  hills. 

The  first  few  heavy  snows  lay  deep ;  then  it 
chinooked  for  a  week  and  the  warm  winds 
settled  and  packed  the  drifts.  Then  for  three 
days  it  snowed  without  a  break  and  cleared 
only  with  the  tightening  down  of  after-storm 
cold. 

Two  days  after  the  cessation  of  the  snowfall 
Woodson  coasted  down  the  south  face  of  the 
Sulphur  Hills  with  two  companions,  soldiers 
from  the  detachment  at  the  Canyon.  The 
three  men  shot  down  a  smooth  open  slope, 
starting  abreast  and  some  twenty  yards 
apart.  Woodson's  skis  suddenly  slid  up  and 

95 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

over  some  obstruction  such  as  might  be 
caused  by  a  down-log  just  beneath  the  sur- 
face of  the  snow.  Off  to  the  left  he  noted 
the  same  queer  rise  and  dip  of  both  his  com- 
panions as  they  rode  their  skis  over  some 
similar  ridge.  His  mind,  occupied  with 
dreams  of  the  world  outside,  came  back  to  the 
present,  and  instantly  he  became  again  the 
man  hunter.  His  ski  pole  checked  his  slide 
and  he  climbed  back  to  the  point,  brushing 
the  loose  snow  from  the  object  with  his  mitts. 
Some  man  had  left  a  ski  trail  round  the  side- 
hill  after  the  previous  storm,  while  the  chinook 
was  thawing  the  drifts,  the  packed  trail 
freezing  into  a  ridge  as  the  looser  snow  melted 
away  from  it,  and  leaving  it  standing  out 
above  the  rest  as  the  cold  clamped  down  in  the 
chinook's  wake,  the  whole  scene  once  more 
covered  by  eight  inches  of  fresh  snow. 

The  soldiers  waited  below  but  Woodson 
made  no  mention  of  his  find.  The  temper- 
ature dropped  steadily  as  they  rounded  a 
bend  and  traveled  down  the  Canyon  road. 
When  they  reached  the  soldier  station  the 
thermometer  registered  fifty-two  below.  At 
daylight  the  scout  prepared  to  leave. 

"Where  away?"  asked  the  sergeant  in 
charge  of  the  station.  "It 's  rough  outside." 

"Rough,"  Woodson  agreed.  "But  I  Ve  a 
hike  to  make." 

96 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

The  sergeant  fitted  him  out  with  an  extra 
blanket  and  a  few  supplies.  He  shivered  at 
the  icy  blast  that  bored  past  him  with  every 
opening  of  the  door. 

"A  man  can't  live  out  there,"  he  stated. 
"I  would  n't  send  a  man  of  mine  out  in  that 
unless  I  wanted  to  see  him  killed.  You 
better  hole  up  with  us  till  she  eases  off." 

"I  can  weather  it,  likely,"  Woodson  said. 
"I  '11  stop  in  at  the  Lake  Station  if  it  clamps 
down  a  few  more  degrees." 

"What  you  heading  back  that  way  for  ?  "  the 
sergeant  asked.  "Thought  you  'd  started  in." 

"One  more  round,"  Woodson  said.  "Clear 
to  the  Snake  Station,  then  round  Norris  way 
coming  back.  I  can  make  the  Snake  in  two 
days  if  it  breaks." 

"An'  if  it  don't  break  we  '11  find  your  car- 
cass along  sometime  in  the  spring,"  the 
sergeant  prophesied.  He  watched  the  soli- 
tary figure  out  of  sight. 

The  sergeant  called  the  Lake  Station  at 
noon  and  the  soldier  in  charge  there  reported 
no  sign  of  the  scout.  He  gave  the  same  report 
that  night. 

"Either  he's  started  out  on  one  of  them 
secret  swings,  after  lying  to  me  to  beat  all 
hell  about  his  destination  —  like  he  most 
generally  does  —  or  else  he  's  froze  stiff  by 
now,"  the  sergeant  mused. 

97 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Woodson's  reason  for  failing  to  divulge  his 
destination  was  based  on  former  experiences. 
He  did  not  distrust  the  sergeant;  but  tele- 
phones, recently  installed,  were  handy  imple- 
ments with  which  to  while  away  the  time 
and  the  isolated  detachments  made  good  use 
of  them.  Any  detail  furnished  food  for  con- 
versation, even  the  coming  and  departure  of 
a  scout.  Soldiers,  in  their  loneliness,  fre- 
quently made  friends  among  those  outside 
and  were  not  too  prone  to  investigate  the 
operations  of  those  friends.  With  the  news 
of  a  scout's  destination  always  traveling  over 
the  wire  before  him  there  was  ever  the  chance 
that  the  man  he  sought  might  be  warned  in 
time  by  some  soldier  friend;  and  Woodson 
had  followed  many  trails  that  led  outside 
which  might  well  have  been  ended  before  the 
line  was  reached. 

At  midnight  the  sergeant  called  the  Lake 
Station  again  but  Woodson  had  not  appeared. 

"He  's  got  it  this  time,"  the  sergeant  said. 
"He  's  curled  up  somewheres,  froze  stiff  by 
now.  Well,  I  guess  it  won't  raise  much  com- 
motion one  way  or  another.  He  's  all  right 
enough,  Mart  is,  but  I  don't  reckon  he  's  ever 
done  anything  that  amounts  to  a  puff  of 
smoke." 

Mart  Woodson,  far  up  the  Pelican,  was 
brooding  over  that  same  thought.  The  one 

98 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

thing  to  which  he  had  put  his  hand  had 
crumbled  to  nothingness.  The  millions,  whose 
property  he  guarded  from  the  inroads  of  the 
few,  were  unaware  of  his  very  existence.  He 
had  gained  only  the  enmity  of  those  who  lived 
in  the  hills.  Men  in  three  States  bordering 
the  park,  men  who  had  never  seen  him, 
bristled  at  the  name  of  Woodson.  These 
men  stood  on  their  rights  as  free-born  citizens 
and  hated  the  one  figure  that  opposed  their 
code  of  life.  The  very  fact  that  game  was  no 
longer  plentiful  outside  the  Park  intensified 
their  indignation  over  the  fact  that  they  were 
not  allowed  the  right  to  hunt  within  it.  This 
enmity  was  his  sole  reward  for  years  of 
service. 

The  scout  squatted  before  a  fire,  both 
blankets  wrapped  round  him  and  with  his 
arms  locked  around  a  tree.  In  case  he  dozed, 
the  relaxing  of  his  arms  and  the  consequent 
backward  lurch  would  rouse  him  to  replenish 
the  fire.  Otherwise  he  might  well  freeze  as 
he  slept.  He  had  not  intended  to  take  up 
another  trail;  but  he  had  been  at  the  game 
too  long  to  pass  over  a  sign  that  challenged 
his  interest.  He  revolved  the  thing  in  his 
mind  and  attempted  to  put  himself  in  the 
place  of  the  man  he  stalked.  If  he  were 
poaching  on  the  Pelican  where  would  he 
camp  ?  He  decided  that  he  would  pick  some 

99 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

isolated  patch  of  timber  in  a  pocket  where  no 
other  would  be  apt  to  cross  in  passing  up  or 
down  the  Pelican;  he  would  leave  no  trails 
in  the  open.  First  he  would  construct  a 
wikiup  of  poles  and  boughs  to  shut"  out  the 
snow,  a  sheltered  nest  in  which  to  unroll  his 
blankets.  He  lurched  suddenly  backward 
and  realized  that  he  had  fallen  asleep  in  this 
comfortable  retreat  he  had  pictured  for  the 
other.  The  fire  was  low.  One  ear  was  stiff 
with  frost.  He  replenished  the  fire  and 
treated  the  frozen  member  with  a  brisk 
application  of  snow. 

The  following  day  he  reached  a  poacher's 
deserted  cabin  on  a  tributary  of  the  Pelican ; 
one  he  had  unearthed  years  before  and  whose 
owner  he  had  taken.  From  this  point  he 
ransacked  the  hills  for  two  days  but  found  no 
tracks.  His  man  had  left.  Twice  he  had 
crossed  frozen  ski  trails  under  the  surface  of 
the  new  layer  of  snow.  Toward  evening  of 
the  second  day,  in  a  patch  of  heavy  timber  on 
Astringent  Creek,  he  found  his  way  studded 
with  these  old  signs.  He  circled  through  the 
patch  and  came  upon  the  deserted  wikiup  of 
poles  and  bows ;  but  not  quite  deserted,  for 
the  man  had  left  a  few  supplies,  evidence  that 
he  expected  to  return.  For  another  six  days 
the  scout  watched  the  long  openings  breaking 
down  from  the  north.  A  rise  in  temperature 

100 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

had  brought  with  it  a  light  fall  of  snow  to 
cover  the  tracks  of  his  single  visit  to  the 
poacher's  retreat  and  he  neared  it  no  more. 
His  patience  bore  fruit  and  on  the  morning 
of  the  seventh  day  he  made  out  a  trail  crossing 
an  open  park  on  a  distant  slope,  a  wide 
swathe  in  the  snow  which  told  him  that  his 
man  had  towed  a  toboggan  behind  him.  He 
would  be  at  the  wikiup  by  now.  The  scout 
circled  to  come  in  behind  the  spot,  choosing  a 
route  by  which  he  could  approach  unseen 
through  the  heavy  timber.  As  he  neared 
the  man's  hidden  hang-out  he  stopped  to 
listen.  A  shot  had  drifted  faintly  to  his  ears, 
coming  from  well  up  Astringent  Creek.  A 
dozen  others  followed  and  the  scout  turned 
his  steps  that  way. 

"He's  working  fast,"  he  said.  "He's 
made  his  kill.  He  '11  skin  to-day  and  make 
his  start  for  the  outside  to-night." 

An  hour  later  he  looked  down  through  an 
opening  in  the  timber.  A  hundred  yards 
below  the  tree  line,  well  out  in  a  sloping 
meadow,  a  man  leaned  over  a  dark  shape  in 
the  snow.  Other  still  forms  were  scattered 
near.  The  scout  turned  his  skis  downhill, 
boring  down  the  steep  declivity  with  the  speed 
of  a  flying  thing,  the  impetus  of  his  rush 
carrying  him  out  across  the  flat  on  silent  skis. 
Not  until  within  forty  yards  of  his  man  did 

101 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

the  faint  hiss  of  wood  on  snow  reach  the 
poacher's  ears.  He  turned  for  a  quick  glance 
behind  him,  then  reached  for  the  rifle  that 
leaned  against  the  carcass  on  which  he  worked ; 
and  as  he  whirled  with  it,  the  butt-plate  of  the 
scout's  rifle,  driven  with  a  straight-arm  jab, 
smashed  between  his  eyes  and  the  two  men 
rolled  together  in  the  snow. 

Two  days  thereafter  a  party  of  outdoor 
devotees,  having  braved  the  winter  of  the 
high  country,  pressed  up  the  Canyon  road  in 
search  of  the  buffalo  range.  They  had  met 
with  every  courtesy  and  had  been  furnished 
with  soldier  guides,  but  they  had  failed  to 
cross  the  tracks  of  a  single  one  of  the  beasts 
they  had  come  so  far  to  see.  But  they  were 
not  to  be  deterred  and  they  headed  now  for 
the  Hayden  Valley.  Each  new  guide  had 
promised  to  show  them  buffalo  in  great  droves 
but  each  in  turn  had  failed  and  surmised  that 
they  had  drifted  to  some  other  point  before 
the  recent  storms.  There  were  at  least  two  of 
the  party  who,  in  a  vague  sort  of  way,  felt  that 
they  had  been  neatly  sidetracked  at  every  turn. 

Two  men,  one  walking  slightly  in  advance, 
turned  a  bend  and  came  down  the  road.  The 
man  in  the  rear  wore  the  uniform  of  Park 
scouts  and  the  party  hailed  him  and  made 
inquiry  concerning  the  whereabouts  of  the 
animals  they  had  come  to  see. 

102 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

| 

"The  last  twelve  head  in  the  reservation 
pulled  out  of  Astringent  Creek,  heading  north 
two  days  ago,"  the  scout  informed  them 
bluntly;  "I  counted  the  tracks.  If  they 
don't  all  winter-kill  there  '11  be  that  many 
left  in  the  spring." 

"Twelve  head!"  exclaimed  the  leader  of 
the  party.  "Why,  there  's  a  total  of  some 
three  thousand-odd  inside  the  park." 

"If  a  man  shows  you  over  twelve  head  I  '11 
give  him  all  I  've  got,"  the  scout  retorted 
doggedly.  "I  know!  There  hasn't  been  a 
track  on  the  Bechler  or  the  Madison  Plateau 
these  two  years  back.  Carnahan  here,"  jerk- 
ing his  thumb  at  the  prisoner,  "cleaned  the 
Hayden  Valley  bunch  to  the  last  hoof  a  few 
months  past;  and  two  days  ago  he  downed 
half  of  the  Pelican  herd,  the  last  left  in  the 
Park." 

"But  you  must  be  wrong,"  the  man  de- 
murred. 

"It's  facts  I'm  telling  you,"  the  scout 
insisted.  The  soldier  guide  was  a  candid 
fellow. 

"Old  Mart  has  been  here  since  before  this 
country  was  throwed  into  a  Park,"  he  volun- 
teered. "  It 's  him  that  knows.  I  've  only 
been  stationed  here  six  months  —  which  is 
six  months  too  long —  so  I  don't  know  much 
local  history  myself,  and  don't  want  to  learn, 

103 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

but  whatever  old  Mart  says  is  gospel.     You 
can  bet  on  that." 

The  appellation  occasioned  the  scout  a 
swift  flash  of  apprehension.  It  was  the  first 
time  any  one  had  referred  to  him  as  Old 
Mart.  He  was  old  only  in  Park  annals,  he 
assured  himself.  It  was  his  length  of  resi- 
dence, not  his  age,  that  had  suggested  the  ad- 
jective. That  was  all.  The  leader  of  the  party 
had  turned  a  somber  gaze  upon  Carnahan. 

"And  what  will  they  do  with  him?"  he 
demanded. 

"Throw  him  loose,"  Woodson  predicted. 
"That 's  what  they  've  always  done  before. 
This  is  the  third  time  I  've  had  him  up  for  the 
same  offense." 

The  leader  noted  the  scout's  frosted  ear, 
swollen  to  twice  its  normal  thickness.  There 
were  frost  buttons  in  both  cheeks  and  the 
whole  face  was  scarred  with  the  marks  of 
former  exposure.  He  turned  back  with  Wood- 
son  and  his  prisoner  and  sought  to  learn  past 
and  present  conditions  from  the  words  of  this 
first  resident  in  the  Park.  The  scout  answered 
his  questions  without  reserve,  briefly  but  to  the 
point.  He  grasped  something  of  Wbodson's 
original  hope  of  preserving  the  naturalness  of 
the  Yellowstone,  a  hope  that  waned  from  lack 
of  support.  He  demurred  when  the  scout 
stated  his  intention  of  leaving  in  the  spring. 

104 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

"But  your  task  is  only  started,"  he  objected. 

"It 's  finished,"  Woodson  returned.  "The 
thing  I  set  out  to  do  has  failed.  The  buffalo 
are  cleaned  out  of  the  Park." 

"One  out  of  a  dozen,"  the  other  urged. 
"The  other  game  holds  its  own.  The  forests 
and  streams  are  still  untouched.  The  Petri- 
fied Forest  and  the  Knotted  Wood  still  stand, 
thanks  to  you.  Don't  desert  because  one 
interest  out  of  a  hundred  has  been  destroyed. 
Stay  and  save  the  rest.  It 's  a  big  work  you 
are  doing  here." 

The  scout  stubbornly  shook  his  head. 

"I  have  to  play  almost  a  lone  hand,"  he 
said.  "The  people  at  large,  the  real  owners 
of  the  Park,  don't  give  one  continental  damn 
what  becomes  of  it ;  so  why  should  I  put  in 
my  time  saving  something  they  don't  want? 
Can  you  tell  me  that?" 

The  man  could  —  and  did.  He  insisted 
that  the  public  had  never  known  the  truth; 
that  the  news  of  a  single  raid  had  never  found 
its  way  into  print ;  that  the  seeming  lethargy 
was  merely  misinformation  as  to  the  true 
state  of  affairs.  He  was  gifted  with  per- 
suasive eloquence  and  he  stressed  the  impor- 
tance of  the  scout's  part,  painted  a  glowing 
picture  of  the  future.  Two  hundred  thousand 
elk  still  ranged  the  hills  ;  the  beaver  held  their 
own  in  sections  of  the  Park ;  more  than  three 

105 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

thousand  square  miles  of  virgin  forests,  a 
thousand  lakes  and  streams  as  they  had 
always  been;  five  thousand  antelope  still 
roaming  from  the  Yancey  Meadows  to  the 
bottoms  of  the  fair  Lamar.  Bit  by  bit  he 
built  a  picture  of  the  future  as  he  wished  to 
see  it  and  Woodson's  hope  revived,  expanding 
under  the  sincere  praise  of  his  past  perform- 
ances, even  though  in  the  end  they  had 
resulted  only  in  blank  failure.  The  young 
man  promised  that  the  public  should  learn 
the  facts ;  that  the  chief  scout  would  soon 
have  ample  support.  And  in  the  end  Wood- 
son  gave  his  promise  to  remain  for  at  least 
another  year. 

Carnahan  was  tried  and  found  guilty,  as  he 
had  been  found  twice  before,  and  warned  to 
stay  outside  the  Park.  Then  the  storm 
broke  round  the  ears  of  those  in  authority. 
The  public  press  announced  the  facts  of  the 
case  from  coast  to  coast,  stated  that,  instead 
of  thousands  as  generally  supposed,  there 
were  but  twelve  buffalo  remaining  in  the 
Park;  offered  to  prove  the  assertion,  sup- 
plementing the  news  with  details  of  raids 
long  past  and  withheld  from  print.  Popular 
wrath,  instead  of  subsiding,  increased  to  such 
an  extent  that  it  occasioned  the  hasty  passage 
of  needed  legislation. 

Tame  buffalo  were  purchased  from  a  few 
106 


THE   PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

far-sighted  individuals  who  had  captured  and 
preserved  a  few  of  the  vanishing  race  before 
it  was  too  late.  These  were  installed  in  the 
Park  where  tourists  could  view  them  and  see 
for  themselves  that  the  buffalo  still  existed 
there.  Corrals  were  erected  for  their  hand- 
ling and  great  areas  partially  fenced.  Wood- 
son  saw  the  start  of  expenditures,  eventually 
to  run  into  large  sums,  for  the  purpose  of 
building  up  a  domesticated  herd  which  the 
people  would  always  believe  to  be  descended 
from  the  thousands  ranging  wild  in  the  reser- 
vation when  it  was  first  set  aside  for  them. 


107 


IX 


THE  long-contemplated  visit  to  the  old 
home  had  been  realized  at  last  and  Woodson 
sat  on  the  porch  of  a  store  in  the  sleepy  little 
village  of  his  youth,  not  greatly  altered  in  the 
more  than  thirty  years  since  he  had  last 
looked  upon  it,  for  the  rush  of  progress  had 
passed  it  by.  The  trip  had  been  deferred  for 
another  decade,  for  a  new  system  had  been 
inaugurated  in  the  land  of  the  Yellowstone, 
a  policy  of  conservation  such  as  Woodson 
himself  had  visioned  from  the  first,  so  he  had 
remained  to  become  associated  with  the  new 
movement.  His  We  work  was  now  definitely 
identified  with  the  preservation  of  the  Park, 
since  the  policy  of  its  management  was  so 
nearly  in  accord  with  his  own  ideas.  Eventu- 
ally he  had  applied  for  leave  with  the  promise 
to  return  at  the  end  of  a  year.  Yet  at  the 
end  of  three  weeks  his  restlessness  was  upper- 
most and  he  fought  down  the  desire  to  leave. 

McCann,  of  the  old  hide-hunting  days,  sat 
with  him  on  the  store  porch. 

"I  '11  wait  anyway  to  see  the  pigeon  flight 
this  fall,"  Woodson  said,  voicing  one  of  the 

108 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

arguments  with  which  he  sought  to  convince 
himself  against  the  too  early  departure  that 
crept  insistently  to  his  mind ;  for  things  were 
not  as  he  had  so  fondly  anticipated.  The 
dead  village  remained  the  same  and  many 
old  friends  had  tarried  there.  It  was  the 
landscape  that  had  changed.  The  whole 
countryside  was  altered  beyond  recognition, 
the  hardwood  timber  cut  from  a  thousand 
valleys,  much  of  it  piled  and  burned  to  clear 
the  land  for  farming,  some  of  the  straight- 
grained  logs  split  for  fence  rails,  these  later 
replaced  by  the  more  modern  wire  fence  and 
the  rails  burned  to  be  rid  of  them  or  cut  into 
stove-wood  lengths.  He  reflected  that  this 
wholesale  slashing  had  been  unavoidable; 
it  was  part  of  the  general  age  of  progress,  a 
measure  necessary  to  get  the  land  in  shape  for 
farming.  'Yes,"  he  said  again,  "I  '11  wait 
anyhow  for  the  pigeon  flight.  I  'd  like  to 
watch  them  go  over  again  in  swarms  that 
cloud  the  sun.  We  don't  have  birds  in  such 
numbers  out  in  the  hills.  They  're  more 
scattered  like,  out  there.  I  've  thought  about 
the  pigeon  flight  back  here  a  thousand  times 
and  wanted  to  see  it  all  again." 

McCann  grunted  amusedly  at  the  others 
gathered  before  the  store. 

"There  has  n't  been  a  pigeon  flight  in 
twenty  years,"  he  said.  "So  if  that 's  what 

109 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

you  're  waiting  for,  you  might  as  well  pile  on 
the  train  with  me  to-morrow/' 

"I  was  n't  expecting  to  see  them  as  thick  as 
they  were  years  back,"  Woodson  confessed. 
"It  don't  seem  that  there  's  anything  in  the 
quantity  it  used  to  be.  I  've  seen  ten  million 
wild  pigeons  in  a  day.  If  I  could  see  a  few 
flocks  of  ten  thousand  in  a  bunch  it  would 
be  enough  for  me  " 

"You  can  make  ten  thousand  dollars  in  a 
bunch  if  you  can  see  one  pigeon  and  bring  it 
in,"  McCann  returned.  "Don't  you  know 
there  has  n't  been  a  pigeon  seen  in  the  last 
fifteen  years  ?  " 

"It  seems  like  they  must  have  changed 
their  flights  to  somewheres  else,"  one  man 
volunteered.  "I  've  heard  it  said  that  they 
was  likely  in  South  America.  Maybe  that 's 
where  they  're  at.  It  would  n't  surprise  me 
a  mite  to  see  'em  come  swarming  back  in  here 
any  time.  I  've  seen  the  time  when  we 
shipped  a  thousand  barrels  of  pigeons  to  the 
Chicago  markets  from  this  county  every 
day." 

The  discussion  turned  to  the  various  re- 
wards posted  for  the  body  of  a  single  pas- 
senger pigeon.  These  sums  ranged  from  one 
hundred  dollars  to  a  thousand,  offered  by 
various  societies  and  individuals,  and  the 
aggregate  was  large. 

110 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

"A  man  could  make  a  good  stake  if  he  only 
knowed  where  they  'd  gone,"  remarked  one 
of  the  group. 

"I  know  where  they've  gone,"  said 
McCann.  He  laughed  and  prodded  Woodson 
with  his  thumb.  "We  know,  you  and  me; 
eh,  Mart  ?  They  Ve  followed  the  beaver  and 
the  lost  herd." 

"And  the  hardwood  trees,"  Woodson  ampli- 
fied. 

McCann's  grin  faded  and  he  nodded  som- 
berly. For  twenty  years  he  had  worked  in 
the  lumber  camps  and  the  disappearance  of 
standing  timber  was  nearer  his  heart  than  the 
disappearance  of  all  else  combined.  He  was 
about  to  set  forth  for  new  fields  in  which  to 
ply  his  trade. 

The  next  morning  Woodson  boarded  the 
train  with  McCann.  The  eager  anticipation 
with  which  he  had  looked  forward  to  his  trip 
was  gone.  It  would  have  been  far  better  if 
he  had  never  come.  For  those  who  had 
stagnated  in  one  spot  the  transition  had 
seemed  gradual  indeed,  barely  perceptible ; 
but  to  Woodson,  come  back  after  all  the 
years,  the  difference  was  so  apparent  as  to 
strike  home  with  a  shock.  He  had  seen  that 
it  was  necessary,  this  wholesale  sacrifice  of  the 
timber  in  the  valleys,  to  make  room  for  the 
farms  of  men.  But  now  the  train  rolled 

111 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

through  miles  and  miles  of  unsightly  slash- 
ings. A  hundred  million  acres  of  hardwood 
hills,  totally  unfit  for  the  plow,  had  been  cut 
over  to  the  last  available  tree,  stripped  of  all 
save  the  worthless  scrubs.  Black  walnut  logs 
had  been  ripped  into  dimension  stuff  or  used 
for  heavy  beams  and  pilings.  Smooth  white 
oak  and  sturdy  hickory  had  furnished  planks 
for  bridges.  Nature  had  started  to  conceal 
her  scars,  and  endless  miles  of  these  waste 
areas,  grown  up  with  matted  jungles  of  brush 
and  stunted  second  growth,  stood  as  the  only 
monument  of  the  great  day  of  the  lumber 
trade.  In  other  parts  the  best  of  the  fir  and 
spruce,  the  pick  of  the  cedar,  pine  and  hem- 
lock had  been  rafted  to  the  mills,  the  few 
remaining  tracts  in  the  hands  of  individuals 
or  concerns  who  could  cut  it  at  their  will. 

McCann  broke  a  long  silence  to  grumble 
surlily  about  his  lot  in  life. 

"The  old  days  are  gone,"  he  said.  "What 's 
this  country  coming  to,  anyway?  A  man 
has  to  ask  permission  of  some  one  else  and 
have  them  pick  out  his  logs  before  he  can  go 
into  government  timber  and  drop  a  tree." 

He  referred  to  the  Forest  Service,  which 
had  been  in  operation  for  a  number  of  years. 
For  suddenly  men  had  paused  in  the  mad 
rush  to  wonder.  Just  possibly  it  would  have 
been  wiser  to  use  less  headlong  haste.  The 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

smaller  trees,  sacrificed  for  railroad  ties  or  to 
fire  the  boilers  of  the  mills,  would,  if  con- 
served, soon  have  developed  into  trees  of 
sufficient  dimension  to  command  fabulous 
prices  when  laid  down  at  the  doors  of  the 
factories  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  fine 
furniture;  for  the  common  and  abundant 
of  a  few  years  past  were  now  the  rare  and 
priceless  treasures  of  the  present,  and  those 
same  trees,  so  wantonly  destroyed,  would 
now  have  been  used  sparingly,  cut  into  thin 
sheets  of  veneer.  Many  a  man  gazed  rue- 
fully upon  his  woodlot  pasture,  covered  with 
a  scant  growth  of  worthless  trees,  regarding 
the  rotting  stumps  of  giants  he  had  felled  for 
firewood  or  merely  to  be  rid  of  them  because 
they  shaded  too  much  land  and  held  back  the 
growth  of  grass  for  feed.  If  he  had  but  a 
dozen  of  those  trees  now  they  would  con- 
stitute a  fortune.  But  the  nation  was  alive 
to  the  wreckage  at  last.  What  tracts  of 
timber  were  left  uncut,  mainly  stands  of 
spruce  and  jack  pine,  formerly  too  low-grade 
or  too  inaccessible  to  log,  had  been  preserved 
in  time.  Broad  areas  were  withdrawn  from 
settlement  and  turned  into  Forest  Reserves, 
administered  with  care  under  a  policy  that 
provided  only  for  the  thinning  of  the  heaviest 
stands,  the  young  trees  being  left  to  grow. 
Reforestation  was  mentioned  as  a  possibility 

113 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

and  experiments  were  under  way.  Conser- 
vation had  replaced  destruction  as  the  watch- 
word of  the  times.  "Plant  a  tree"  societies 
were  organized  and  school  children  marched 
to  view  the  installation  of  slender  seedlings 
among  the  ghosts  of  towering  ancestors  whose 
shade  had  once  graced  the  spot.  In  the 
schoolroom  the  story  of  the  woodman  and 
his  ax  gave  way  to  the  pretty  tale  of  the 
little  acorn  that  grew  into  a  mighty  oak. 

As  the  train  rolled  on  into  the  West  it 
carried  Woodson  into  the  land  of  "Timber 
Claims."  To  the  uninitiated  this  title  vaguely 
suggested  forested  areas  in  far  corners  of  their 
country,  open  to  settlement  by  those  who 
would  make  their  homes  in  distant  spots. 
But  the  reverse  of  this  was  true.  Arid 
regions  were  open  to  settlement  by  those  who 
would  plant  trees  where  no  trees  grew.  Such 
were  the  "Timber  Claims." 

The  train  sped  across  flat  wastes,  dotted 
with  clumps  of  gnarled  and  wind-torn  cotton- 
woods,  hand-planted  and  hand-tended,  that 
struggled  to  survive  under  adverse  conditions, 
a  pitiful  reminder  of  the  worth  of  any  tree 
to-day  and  the  reckless  waste  of  all  trees 
yesterday.  Woodson  reflected  that  succeed- 
ing waves  of  development  had  always  come 
out  of  the  East.  He  would  spend  his  period 
of  leave  to  the  westward  instead.  His  mind 

114 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

leaped  forward  to  the  land  of  the  big  trees, 
the  wonderful  forests  of  the  west  coast  wherein 
he  had  spent  a  year  so  long  ago.  The  rattle 
and  roar  of  civilization  had  palled  and  he 
dwelt  upon  the  solemn  hush  of  the  coast-belt 
forests,  the  churchlike  quiet  that  opens  up  a 
man's  soul  to  his  own  view  and  convinces  him 
for  all  time  of  his  own  minuteness ;  shears 
his  egotism  from  him.  There  he  knows  that 
the  universe  was  not  created  solely  for  man 
alone,  the  one  thought  that  pervades  the 
minds  of  those  who  dwell  solely  amid  works 
of  men  and  know  not  Nature.  Once  alone 
and  in  close  communion  with  the  Mother  of 
us  all,  if  a  man  be  capable  of  thought,  his 
conceit  drops  from  him  and  he  comes  to  know 
that  he  is  but  one  of  the  forms  of  life  in 
Nature's  vast  balance  wheel,  a  pygmy  in  the 
scheme  of  things,  to  be  as  easily  crushed,  once 
he  succeeds  in  disturbing  that  delicate  balance 
which  he  constantly  perverts  and  which  he 
fondly  dreams  was  constructed  for  his  delight 
alone.  All  these  things  Woodson  had  learned 
in  his  youth  and  they  had  never  left  him.  A 
failure  in  the  eyes  of  men  who  measured  only 
in  material  gain ;  yet,  through  his  very  failure 
at  striving  for  things  which  to  him  were  the 
greater,  from  his  habit  of  thinking  to  himself 
amid  the  works  of  Nature  instead  of  thinking 
among  others  chained  by  precept  and  con« 

115 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

vention  among  the  artificialities  of  men,  — 
perhaps  from  all  these  his  vision  was  far 
broader,  and  he  was  nearer  to  understanding 
the  source  of  life  that  men  call  God  than  those 
who,  by  their  own  standards,  have  succeeded 
in  whatever  they  undertook  to  do. 

Woodson  saw  man  as  one  creature  among 
many.  From  a  brute  with  a  club  he  had 
become  a  man,  even  as  the  Eohippus  had 
become  a  horse,  and  throughout  his  evolution 
he  had  gained  knowledge  from  other  creatures 
and  improved  upon  their  methods.  Like 
them,  he  drew  upon  Nature's  storehouse  for 
his  own  purposes.  His  inventive  brain  had 
given  him  tools  which  did  his  killing  and 
supplied  his  meat  more  easily  than  the  claws 
and  fangs  that  served  that  purpose  for  the 
real  meat-eating  tribes.  He  dammed  streams 
more  ably  than  the  beaver  and  diverted 
the  water  for  his  own  use.  Once,  like  other 
creatures,  his  habitat  had  shifted  with  the 
food  supply,  and  he  had  prowled  in  nomadic 
bands  in  search  of  those  spots  where  food  was 
plentiful.  Later,  perhaps  from  aping  the 
actions  of  the  bee,  he  had  learned  to  bring 
the  food  supply  to  him  instead.  By  carry- 
ing the  pollen  from  one  blossom  to  the  next 
the  bee  assures  the  fertility  and  seed  supply 
necessary  to  perpetuate  in  his  neighborhood 
the  flowers  from  which  he  draws  his  honey. 

116 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Perhaps  it  was  also  from  the  bee,  or  from  the 
ant,  the  beaver  or  the  squirrel  that  man 
learned  to  store  his  surplus  food  against  lean 
days. 

He  had  learned  to  build  better  dwellings 
than  the  beaver  or  the  muskrat.  From  the 
birds  he  learned  how  to  weave  rushes  and 
the  wool  of  animals,  the  down  of  flowers  and 
the  bark  of  trees ;  from  the  insects  he  learned 
to  spin,  and  now  he  both  spins  and  weaves 
far  better  than  the  spider  or  the  bird.  Like 
the  ant,  the  bee  and  the  beaver,  he  clusters 
in  colonies  and  works  for  the  common  good, 
but  in  this  respect  it  is  probable  that,  except 
for  the  more  complicated  scheme  of  it,  he  has 
not  attained  so  high  a  plane  as  those  inferior 
creatures,  for  their  social  life  is  constructively 
for  the  common  good  of  the  community  in- 
stead of  a  continuous  struggle  for  individual 
ascendency. 

Men  war  among  themselves  as  do  the 
beasts.  The  male  human  quarrels  over  his 
love  affairs  and  kills  for  his  she  the  same  as  the 
wolf  and  the  jackal.  But  he  points  with 
pride  to  the  fact  that  he  has  law  to  enforce  the 
right  as  his  narrow  vision  sees  it,  —  and  right 
changes  overnight  with  him.  Throughout 
the  ages  men  have  been  torn  apart  by  law  for 
some  wrong  that  the  next  day  would  have 
been  the  right  and  earned  them  the  praise  of 

117 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

multitudes.  So  do  the  beasts  have  laws; 
and  the  insects,  —  laws  that  are  inflexible. 
The  pack  tears  apart  the  individual  that 
menaces  the  interests  of  the  many,  killing 
him  openly  and  frankly  and  without  the 
subtleties  and  complications  which  go  with 
ridding  human  society  of  rabid  individuals. 
Only  a  few  years  back,  a  pin-prick  in  the  span 
of  time,  man  himself  resorted  to  no  such 
niceties  in  his  killing,  but  was  more  direct, 
after  the  manner  of  those  from  whom  he 
sprang.  He  points  with  pride  to  his  "Thou 
Shalt  Nots."  The  beasts  have  them  as 
well. 

Man  has  his  various  moralities  resting 
solely  upon  the  race,  or  sect  within  a  race, 
into  which  he  happened  to  be  born.  One 
sect's  morality  and  philosophy  of  life  consists 
of  many  wives,  of  no  recognition  of  the 
human  soul  of  his  women.  Such,  too,  is  the 
attitude  of  the  bull  elk,  the  buck  deer  and  the 
bighorn  sheep.  Another's  morality  consists 
of  monogamy,  of  the  family  tie.  So  lives  the 
eagle,  the  horned  owl  and  the  fox;  all  as  it 
should  be  except  that  man,  in  his  vast  con- 
ceit, has  forgotten  that  he  is  but  one  of 
Nature's  toys  and  has  come  to  believe  instead 
that  She  is  one  of  his.  He  is  apt  to  forget 
his  insignificance  and  the  fact  that  forces 
beyond  his  control  may  sink  one  continent 

118 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

into  the  sea  and  throw  another  up  from  the 
depths  of  it  with  one  convulsion,  wiping  out 
the  evidence  of  man's  building  of  centuries  as 
easily  as  man  himself  might  casually  spill  a  tub 
of  water  and  blot  the  work  of  generations  of 
busy  ants  at  a  single  stroke. 

These  things  had  all  come  to  Woodson  in 
the  open,  on  the  wide  plains  or  in  his  hills. 
For  a  time  these  thoughts  had  been  but  vague 
mental  gropings,  unassembled  into  the  chan- 
nels of  consecutive  reasoning  which  had 
eventually  developed  into  the  belief  that 
shaped  his  life.  It  had  been  the  days  under 
the  big  trees  —  days  when  he  had  felt  the 
solemn  hush  of  the  noblest  forest  the  world  has 
ever  seen;  when  he  had  stood,  antlike,  at 
the  base  of  one  mighty  trunk  and  tried  to 
comprehend  the  fact  that  for  a  hundred  miles 
each  way  these  monsters  grew  in  such  dense 
masses  that  a  man  could  scarce  squeeze  be- 
tween —  that  had  gathered  up  the  fragmen- 
tary particles  of  thought  and  crystallized 
them  into  the  whole,  which  had  become  his 
creed  And  each  click  of  the  wheels  ticked 
off  one  rail-length  of  the  distance  and  carried 
him  nearer  to  his  goal. 

Then  at  last  he  stood  on  a  high  divide 
where  once  he  had  stood  before.  A  hundred 
miles  of  the  big  trees  had  spread  out  before 
him  then.  Now  the  great  forest  was  gone. 

119 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

A  jungle  of  brush  and  second  growth  had 
sprung  up  to  conceal  the  amputated  stumps. 
Log  roads,  now  deserted  and  slipping  back 
to  Nature  from  lack  of  travel,  made  a  network 
of  dividing  lines  among  the  ruins.  There 
were  patches  where  fire  had  beat  the  loggers 
to  the  work.  Miles  of  burnings  where  the 
blackened  trees  lay  piled  in  great  tangled 
log  jams,  with  here  and  there  a  spot  where 
some  could  not  find  space  to  fall,  their  butts 
wedged  by  their  fellows,  and  towered  black 
and  gaunt  against  the  sky  as  the  spars  of 
some  gigantic  fire-ridden  ship  sunk  in  the 
shallows.  For  hours  Woodson  sat  motionless 
in  one  spot,  his  chin  cupped  in  his  hand. 

A  week  later  he  stood  on  a  spur  of  the  west 
slope  of  the  Absarokas,  back  once  more  in  the 
Yellowstone.  The  autumn  hills  unrolled  be- 
fore him.  The  early  frosts  had  touched  the 
deciduous  trees  with  magic  brush  and  wherever 
the  white  shafts  of  aspens  gleamed  through 
the  black  stand  of  lodge-pole  trunks,  there 
was  color;  splashes  of  yellows  grading  from 
palest  lemon  to  deep  orange  hues ;  vivid 
tongues  of  crimson  leaping  from  the  green  of 
the  spruce  as  the  first  hungry  flames  of  a 
forest  fire;  mauve  shadings  in  the  willow 
and  alder  swamps  of  the  bottoms ;  soft  wine 
tints  and  magenta,  rolling  away  in  a  riot  of 
blending  hues  as  if  but  a  month-old  afterglow 

120 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

of  summer  sunsets.  Woodson  spoke  to  Teton, 
who  grazed  near  by. 

4 'This  is  a  little  different  from  that  other 
view  I  had  a  week  ago,  Teton,"  he  said. 
"They  Ve  waked  up  in  time  to  save  our  trees 
up  here,  anyway.  There  's  sixteen  thousand 
square  miles  in  one  body,  including  the  Park 
itself,  that  has  gone  into  Forest  Reserve  and 
been  withdrawn  from  settlement." 

The  reservation  was  blocked  in  on  all  sides 
by  these  national  forests  of  which  he  spoke; 
to  the  north  lay  the  Gallatin  Forest,  the 
Beartooth  and  the  Absaroka;  the  Shoshone 
Reserve  on  the  east.  All  along  the  southern 
boundary  the  Park  was  flanked  by  the  Teton 
Forest,  to  the  west  by  the  Madison  and  the 
Targhee. 

He  had  seen  little  of  the  outside  world  and 
the  news  of  its  development  had  reached  him 
mainly  by  hearsay.  Now  that  he  had  seen 
for  himself,  he  gloried  in  the  wonderful  stride 
made  by  this  young  nation  of  which  he  was 
a  part.  Yet  some  way  he  was  haunted  by 
a  doubt,  the  same  sensation  that  had  assailed 
his  mind  on  that  former  visit  to  the  plains 
years  before,  —  a  feeling  that  a  good  job  had 
been  a  trifle  too  well  done ;  that  elusive 
impression  that  he  had  been  warned  of  this 
tremendous  waste.  He  sat  and  gazed  off 
across  the  country  and  his  mind  wandered 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

into  the  past.  The  course  of  a  stream  that 
twisted  through  the  hills  was  marked  by  a 
slender  line  of  many-colored  aspens.  Through 
half-closed  eyes  this  variegated  thread  ap- 
peared to  take  on  life  and  again  he  looked 
upon  the  homeward  trail  of  the  Crows, 
winding  a  tortuous  course  through  the  hills. 
The  blue-gray  of  scattered  balsam,  held  in 
relief  against  the  darker  stands  of  spruce, 
took  on  the  semblance  of  smoke-blots  rising 
from  the  teepees.  The  words  of  the  old  chief 
of  the  Crows  came  back  to  him  out  of  the 
past. 

"He  does  much  that  is  wonderful  but 
in  his  haste  to  reach  the  shores  of  the  phantom 
lake  he  tears  down  much  that  he  might  better 
leave  and  which  he  can  never  replace." 

The  source  of  that  warning  was  clear  to 
him  now,  —  the  half -forgotten  rebuke  of  the 
old  chief  for  those  who  followed  only  the  white 
man's  God,  Development. 
(  "They  've  saved  our  trees,  Teton,"  Wood- 
son  said.  "If  only  they  'd  started  in  time  to 
save  some  of  the  rest  —  those  that  can't  be 
regrown  in  the  lives  of  twenty  men  and  all 
cut  down  within  the  life  of  one.  We  're  a 
great  people  but  we  always  go  a  mite  too  fast 
and  don't  watch  the  signs  along  the  trail. 
Then  we  back  track  and  spend  twice  as  much 
in  covering  up  the  wreck  as  we  gained  by 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

traveling  too  rapid  on  the  start.  That 's  our 
big  fault.  We  're  too  busy  to  see  farther 
ahead  than  to-day;  so  anxious  to  gather  in 
the  crop  that  we  pull  up  the  roots  and  kill  the 
seed.  We  killed  off  a  revenue  of  fifty  million 
dollars  a  year  in  the  beaver.  We  shipped 
wild  pigeons  to  the  market  by  the  trainload 
for  five  cents  apiece;  now  one  single  bird 
would  be  worth  a  small  fortune  to  the  finder. 
The  last  ten  million  buffalo  were  shot  down 
for  a  dollar  a  hide;  then  we  spent  twenty 
million  preserving  the  last  few  hundred  head. 
Now  we  Ve  wasted  the  trees.  God  knows 
what  will  come  next  or  where  it  all  will  end. 
But  we  're  a  thorough  people,  once  we  start. 
Now  that  we  're  starting  to  conserve  in  place 
of  tearing  down,  we  '11  do  it  well.  If  only 
just  once  we  could  start  to  conserve  before 
it  was  just  too  late." 

He  mounted  Teton  and  led  the  single  pack 
horse.  For  miles  he  threaded  tangled  jams 
of  blow-downs  without  a  trail. 

"They  '11  never  find  our  little  private  hang- 
out, Teton,"  he  predicted.  "Men  won't 
fight  five  miles  of  the  worst  kind  of  down- 
timber  to  get  nowhere  in  the  end." 

The  way  led  up  to  the  mouth  of  a  forbidding 
canyon  that  widened  unexpectedly  just  within 
the  sheer  masses  of  rock  that  flanked  the 
portals.  He  rode  out  into  a  blind  canyon 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

that  formed  an  oval  basin  a  mile  long  by  half 
that  distance  across,  rimmed  in  by  towering 
walls,  its  only  exit  the  one  twisting,  narrow 
gap  through  which  he  had  just  passed.  Here, 
in  this  basin  unknown  to  other  men,  Mart 
Woodson  had  the  whole  hills  in  miniature,  a 
touch  of  everything  afforded  by  any  other 
part  of  the  Park.  A  long  meadow  stretched 
the  length  of  the  basin,  a  tiny  creek  winding 
through  it.  Dense  forested  slopes  led  up  to 
the  rock  rubble  at  the  base  of  the  walls,  these 
rising  in  pile  on  pile  to  thrust  their  rims  above 
timber  line.  Narrow  swathes  had  been  ripped 
through  the  timber  by  snowslides  plunging 
from  the  cliffs  above  and  shearing  all  life  in 
their  paths,  piling  logs  and  debris,  collected 
in  their  rush,  into  massive  heaps  in  the 
bottoms.  Here,  in  the  more  sheltered  spots, 
the  snow  never  wholly  disappeared  and  there 
were  miniature  glaciers  that  defied  the  summer 
sun  to  completely  blot  them  out  before  the 
early  snows  of  autumn  should  once  more  start 
to  build  them  up.  Silvery  cascades  sparkled 
through  breaks  in  the  wall  at  the  upper  end  as 
the  tiny  stream  leaped  down  from  the  heights 
in  succeeding  falls,  the  last  two  hundred  feet 
of  its  descent  being  almost  sheer,  a  beautiful 
slide  down  rock  that  was  smooth-glazed  from 
its  action.  It  tinkled  into  a  rock  pool  hol- 
lowed out  at  its  base.  A  willow  swamp 

124 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

covered  the  upper  end  of  the  flats.  Here  two 
young  beaver,  transported  to  the  spot  by 
Woodson  the  preceding  year  when  they  were 
kits,  had  damned  the  stream  and  backed  up 
a  pond,  forming  the  only  lake  in  the  pocket. 
At  the  lower  end  of  the  meadow  a  dozen  tiny 
hot  springs  were  scattered  out  for  two  hun- 
dred yards,  adding  a  touch  of  completeness 
to  Woodson's  private  park,  a  spot  no  other 
man  had  seen. 

A  little  cabin  stood  just  within  the  edge  of 
the  timber,  an  exact  duplicate,  except  that 
it  had  a  rough  slab  door  instead  of  an  elk  hide, 
of  that  hut  in  which  he  and  old  Tom  North 
had  wintered  that  first  year  on  the  head  of  the 
Yellowstone.  As  he  rode  toward  the  hut  two 
antelope,  a  pair  he  had  brought  to  this  far 
spot  as  kids,  rose  from  their  beds  in  the 
meadow,  and  one  of  them  loosed  a  gruff, 
hoarse  bark  of  warning.  As  if  understanding 
this  signal  of  a  different  species,  three  cow  elk 
and  their  calves  climbed  a  knoll  near  the  edge 
of  the  meadow  and  an  old  cow,  evidently  the 
leader  of  the  little  band,  gave  her  yelping 
bark  three  times.  Two  mule-deer  does,  fol- 
lowed by  three  fawns,  came  to  the  edge  of  the 
timber  and  peered  curiously  at  the  intruders. 
Woodson  dismounted  before  the  cabin  and 
threw  off  saddles  and  packs,  turning  the  two 
horses  out  on  the  meadow  to  graze.  His  first 

125 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

move  after  storing  away  the  equipment  and 
supplies  was  to  shoulder  a  heavy  sack  of  salt 
and  repair  to  a  spring  some  twenty  yards  from 
the  hut.  It  was  merely  a  trickle  whose  flow 
spread  fan  wise  down  the  slope  and  disappeared 
within  a  few  yards  of  its  source.  Where  it 
came  from  the  sidehill  the  scout  had  scooped 
out  a  pool  and  lined  it  with  rock.  From  this 
he  drew  his  water  supply.  He  dumped  the 
salt  just  below  the  outlet  of  this  little  reservoir 
and  watched  the  overflow  eating  into  the 
white  mass,  trickling  on  to  carry  the  salt  in 
solution  and  impregnate  the  few  yards  of  soft 
mud  below.  This  expanse  had  been  trampled 
by  many  hoofs. 

"  There,  now,"  he  said,  as  he  viewed  this 
artificial  saltlick,  "they  '11  come  for  their  salt 
and  we  '11  get  acquainted  all  over  again. 
It  takes  'em  a  few  days  to  get  used  to  me  every 
time  I  come  in." 

Here  he  could  watch  the  wild  things  in  their 
native  haunts,  undisturbed  by  men,  their 
habits  unchanged.  They  were  all  here  of 
their  own  accord  except  the  beaver  and  the 
antelope  that  he  had  packed  in  on  horses  to 
add  to  his  colony.  The  little  herd  of  elk 
and  the  mule  deer  had  discovered  the  retreat 
themselves  and  always  came  back  to  summer 
in  their  chosen  pocket.  He  cooked  an  early 
meal  and  sat  on  the  doorsill  of  the  cabin  as 

126 


THE  PASSING   OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

the  first  dusk  settled  into  the  basin.  A  porcu- 
pine waddled  from  beneath  a  windfall  and 
came  toward  him.  Woodson  tossed  him  a 
bacon  rind  and  the  animal  munched  the 
delicacy  within  a  few  feet  of  the  man. 

"Prickley,  if  this  plan  goes  through,  men 
will  be  out  looking  for  your  scalp,"  said  the 
scout.  He  drew  a  folded  clipping  from  his 
pocket  and  perused  it  again.  "We  're  a 
thorough  people,  once  we  start.  American 
resourcefulness  is  no  idle  boast.  There  's  a 
thousand  suggestions  put  forward  to  advance 
any  popular  movement  —  no  point  too  small 
to  overlook ;  not  even  you,  Prickley,  for  this 
article  deals  with  the  wasteful  porcupine. 
You  girdle  the  nice  trees  with  those  teeth  of 
yours.  It  says  so  here.  Now  since  we  've 
started  out  to  save  what  trees  are  left,  we  're 
doing  a  good  job  of  it  —  and  may  do  it  a 
trifle  too  well  as  we  have  before.  This 
advocates  putting  a  bounty  on  all  porcupines. 
There 's  maybe  two  thousand  porcupines 
within  a  hundred  miles,  and  some  two  billion 
trees.  Maybe  one  spruce  or  jack  pine  out  of 
every  hundred  thousand  shows  the  marks  of 
a  porky 's  teeth.  But  that 's  the  way  it  goes. 
After  it 's  just  too  late  we  get  downright 
hysterical  about  back  tracking  and  covering 
up  the  waste.  You  hedgehogs  live  on  bark 
and  you  '11  have  to  go.  There 's  another 

127 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

move  on  foot  to  kill  off  the  ospreys  and  the 
pelicans,  the  mergansers  and  the  herons,  all 
because  they  catch  some  fish.  There  's  no 
limit  to  the  number  of  fish  a  man  can  catch  in 
the  Park.  I  Ve  seen  folks  pull  out  two  hun- 
dred pounds  and  get  their  pictures  snapped 
with  more  fish  than  they  could  eat  in  a  month. 
Then  those  same  ones  advocate  killing  off  the 
birds  that  take  only  what  they  eat.  Maybe 
there  's  some  of  us  would  rather  see  a  blue 
heron  standing  out  in  a  swamp,  as  solemn  as 
a  judge;  or  a  squadron  of  pelicans  winging 
down  the  lake ;  maybe  we  'd  rather  hear  an 
osprey  scream  and  watch  him  make  his 
plunge  than  to  see  some  human  have  his 
picture  snapped  with  half-a-ton  of  fish.  But 
if  this  goes  through,  Prickley,  men  will  make 
your  tribe  hard  to  find.  When  we  're  through 
with  you  we  '11  kill  the  birds." 

He  scanned  the  high  slopes  and  the  ava- 
lanche slides  with  his  glasses.  He  knew  well 
the  ways  of  antlered  game;  that  the  lords 
of  the  species  did  not  summer  with  their 
families,  deserting  them  till  the  running  moon 
called  them  back  to  their  harems  in  the  fall. 

"The  elk  ought  to  start  running  about 
now,"  he  said.  "If  Wapiti  came  back  this 
spring  and  is  in  here  anywheres,  we  '11  hear 
him  whistle  in  a  day  or  two." 

As  if  in  answer  to  his  prophesy  the  shrill 
128 


THE  PASSING   OF  THE  OLD   WEST 

squealing  bugle  of  a  young  bull  floated  down 
from  above. 

"Wapiti  was  wise  to  come  back,"  the  scout 
asserted.  "If  he  'd  stayed  outside  some  old 
herd  bull  would  have  run  him  off  from  every 
cow  he  tried  to  cut  out  of  a  band.  In  here 
he  '11  have  the  cows  to  himself  and  run  this 
pocket  according  to  his  own  ideas." 

His  glasses  were  trained  toward  the  spot 
from  which  the  bugle  sounded.  Far  up  under 
the  rims,  at  the  upper  extremity  of  the  trees, 
a  bull  elk  left  the  timber  and  grazed  out  into 
the  open  path  left  by  a  snowslide.  He  was 
a  five-point  bull ;  the  following  year  he  would 
reach  his  prime.  Up  under  the  rims  he  had 
summered,  high  above  his  cows.  He  had  a 
score  of  bull  wallows  tramped  out  in  the 
muddy  seeps  below  the  perpetual  snow  banks 
and  in  these  he  cooled  himself  on  warm  days, 
plastering  himself  with  mud  to  protect  his 
tender  flanks  and  underparts  from  the  insect 
pests. 

Woodson  turned  his  glasses  on  the  rims 
above  in  search  of  Krag,  the  bighorn  ram. 
Krag's  habit,  too,  was  to  summer  apart  from 
the  females  of  his  kind,  but  he  summered 
below  them,  not  above.  His  ewes  and  lambs 
ranged  out  on  the  ridges  and  plateau  above 
timber  line  while  Krag  held  out  along  the 
shelves  and  ledges  of  the  cliffs,  subsisting 

129 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

on  the  grass  that  sprouted  from  the  cracks 
of  the  rock  or  clothed  occasional  shoulders  in 
the  breaks  between  offset  rims.  It  took  some 
time  to  locate  Krag  but  at  last  he  saw  him, 
a  tiny  speck  far  up  the  walls.  Even  with  the 
glasses  it  was  impossible  to  determine  whether 
or  not  he  had  a  foothold  or  simply  adhered 
to  the  face  of  the  cliff  as  a  fly  clings  to  a  pane 
of  glass.  The  old  ram  stood  motionless, 
peering  down  at  Woodson,  and  the  man  knew 
that  the  bighorn  could  see  him  as  easily  with 
the  naked  eye  as  he  himself  could  see  the 
ram  with  binoculars. 

Assured  of  the  presence  of  the  ram,  Wood- 
son  sought  for  some  sign  of  the  mule-deer 
buck  who  had  spent  the  preceding  summer  in 
this  hidden  nook.  He  had  first  looked  upon 
the  buck  in  the  autumn  when  the  deer  were  in 
short  blue,  and  from  this  he  had  named  him 
Blue.  He  trained  his  glasses  upon  the  upper 
extremities  of  the  timber,  examining  every 
snowslide  trail  and  opening  under  the  rim. 
Blue  would  be  in  some  such  locality  as  Wapiti, 
the  bull,  their  choice  of  summer  homes  almost 
identical.  But  he  failed  to  sight  the  buck 
and  feared  that  he  had  not  returned  that 
spring. 

The  scout  started  up  the  valley  toward  the 
swamp  at  the  far  end  of  it  and  each  animal 
gave  evidence  of  its  one  supersense,  the  most 

130 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

highly  developed  of  its  faculties  and  the  one 
upon  which  it  mainly  relied. 

The  two  antelope  had  moved  far  up  the 
meadow,  well  beyond  the  elk,  yet  at  the 
instant  he  stepped  into  the  open  they  detected 
him ;  for  the  antelope  is  essentially  a  creature 
of  wide  plains  and  flat  distances  and  his 
most  dependable  sense  is  the  sense  of  sight. 
His  sense  of  hearing  or  of  smell  may  mislead 
him,  but  it  is  impossible  to  deceive  the  prong- 
horn's  eye.  Even  as  the  antelope  had  spotted 
his  presence  the  instant  he  cleared  the  trees, 
so  too,  Woodson  reflected,  had  the  bighorn 
ram.  The  scout  knew  that  from  far  up  the 
cliffs  the  eyes  of  the  old  sheep  were  watching 
his  every  move;  for  the  bighorn's  most 
reliable  source  of  warning  lies  in  his  all-seeing 
eyes.  Scent  seems  to  mean  little  to  him, 
sound  evidently  nothing  at  all,  but  as  he  rests 
on  some  lofty  shelf  he  sweeps  the  far  hills 
with  his  eyes  and  defies  his  enemies  to  ap- 
proach unseen.  In  this  the  bighorn  of  the 
peaks  is  one  with  the  pronghorn  of  the  plains. 

Woodson  had  frequently  experimented  to 
determine  the  degree  of  development  of  the 
various  senses  in  different  animals  and  he  did 
so  now. 

The  warning  bark  of  the  antelope  sounded 
the  instant  he  stepped  from  the  trees.  The 
scout  stopped  in  his  tracks.  An  old  cow 

131 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

elk  yelped  excitedly  in  sympathy  with  the 
warning  of  the  pronghorn.  She  was  but  half 
the  distance  to  the  antelope  yet  had  not  seen 
the  man.  Every  cow  and  calf  whirled  and 
looked  toward  the  source  of  warning,  their 
backs  to  Woodson.  The  hackle  hair  of  the 
pronghorns  bristled  and  the  light  rump  patch 
flared.  They  stood  gazing  back  past  the  elk. 
Another  antelope  would  have  known  in- 
stantly the  direction  of  the  danger  by  noting 
the  direction  of  the  others'  gaze.  But  the 
elk  paid  small  heed  to  this,  another  bit  of 
evidence  that  they  placed  but  small  reliance 
on  their  eyes.  They  sought  for  the  menace 
in  the  opposite  direction  since  the  warning 
had  come  from  there.  When  the  man  moved 
again  one  cow  turned  and  saw  him.  He 
advanced  a  few  steps  at  a  time  and  the  elk 
milled  uneasily.  The  wind  came  quartering 
down  the  basin  and  he  kept  to  the  far  side 
of  the  meadow  from  them.  None  of  the 
animals  was  really  frightened,  only  slightly 
uneasy  at  the  presence  of  man  among  them. 
On  each  succeeding  visit  they  must  let  the 
newness  of  it  wear  off  before  accepting  the 
man  as  a  harmless  creature,  one  of  themselves. 
He  proceeded  to  the  beaver  pond  and 
peered  from  the  fringe  of  trees  that  bordered 
it.  A  giant  bull  moose,  a  cow  and  a  long- 
legged  calf  stood  knee-deep  in  the  water  where 

132 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

it  backed  up  among  the  willows  across  from 
him.  The  bull  waded  out  to  the  deepest 
part  and  plunged  his  head  below  the  surface. 
Only  the  hump  of  his  withers  showed  above 
the  water  and  he  remained  in  this  submerged 
state  for  so  long  a  time  that  Woodson  mar- 
veled. Then  the  great  head  lifted  into  view 
and  the  bull  munched  contentedly  the  mouth- 
ful of  roots  and  vegetation  he  had  uprooted 
from  the  floor  of  the  pond.  The  cow  and  calf 
fed  nearer  the  margin  where  the  water  was 
more  shallow.  The  mother  saw  the  man  as 
he  moved  quietly  along  the  shore;  but  the 
wind  was  wrong  and  when  he  stopped  she 
could  not  be  sure.  The  moose  depended 
mainly  on  scent,  distrusting  the  evidence  of 
their  eyes.  The  three  big  beasts  neared  him 
and  stood  in  the  shallow  on  his  side  of  the 
pool  while  he  remained  motionless.  Their 
little  eyes,  set  high  in  the  massive  heads, 
glared  wickedly  and  the  bull  and  the  cow 
popped  their  thick  lips  at  him  with  a  sucking 
sound.  They  did  not  fear  him  and  when  he 
left  they  stood  and  watched  him  go. 

On  the  return  trip  down  the  basin  he  chose 
the  opposite  side  of  the  meadow,  keeping 
just  within  the  trees.  The  quartering  wind 
was  now  at  his  back  and  it  was  the  elk  who 
first  detected  his  approach.  While  he  was 
yet  some  two  hundred  yards  from  them  they 

133 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

whirled  to  face  him,  the  ribbon  of  scent 
pointing  out  his  whereabouts  as  surely  for 
the  elk  as  sight  of  him  had  warned  the  two 
antelope  on  the  up -trip.  Now  the  antelope 
found  themselves  at  a  loss  to  locate  him, 
knowing  his  direction  only  for  the  reason  that 
their  eyes  noted  the  way  the  elk  were  facing, 
but  they  could  not  be  certain  till  their  eyes 
were  trained  on  the  man  himself,  the  scent 
that  was  so  evident  to  the  elk  apparently 
being  too  slight  to  register  on  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  pronghorns.  Thus  Woodson  had 
proved  that  the  most  dependable  sense  of  one 
of  these  animals  was  that  of  scent,  the  other 
that  of  sight. 

It  was  almost  dark  when  he  reached  the 
cabin.  A  dozen  times  during  the  night  the 
bull  elk  bugled  and  when  Woodson  rose  in  the 
morning  Wapiti  had  joined  his  cows  and 
calves  in  the  meadow.  The  scout  repaired  to 
the  salt  lick  and  found  there  the  tracks  of 
all  his  colony.  Even  Krag  had  come  down 
from  his  cliff  for  a  share  of  the  salt.  The 
track  of  a  buck  deer  showed  among  the  rest 
and  Woodson  knew  that  Blue  was  somewhere 
in  the  pocket.  The  running  moon  of  the 
deer  was  later  than  that  of  the  elk  and  moose. 
Blue  still  lived  alone  and  had  not  yet  joined 
his  does. 

As  he  finished  his  breakfast  and  stepped 
134 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

outside,  Woodson  noted  that  Teton  was 
peering  down  the  meadow,  his  ears  pricked 
sharply  in  the  direction  of  his  gaze.  A  few 
yards  behind  him  the  pack  horse  was  making 
a  similar  point.  Woodson  turned  his  eyes 
that  way  and  saw  a  big  black  she-bear  just 
within  the  entrance  to  the  basin.  She  stood 
swaying  from  side  to  side,  her  nose  testing 
the  air  currents  eddying  down  the  bottoms. 
Behind  her  a  black  cub  and  a  brown  sat  on 
their  haunches. 

"Here  come  the  two  blue-ribbon  pests," 
Woodson  said,  "Wakinee  and  Wakinoo, 
They  '11  most  certainly  make  me  lock  up 
every  time  I  go  even  to  the  spring  for  water. 
But  I  *m  glad  to  see  them  back." 

The  old  she-bear  had  denned  the  preceding 
winter  in  the  pocket  and  when  she  came  forth 
in  the  spring  she  was  followed  by  two  cubs. 
She  had  learned  from  long  experience  that 
the  easiest  living  was  to  be  rustled  round  the 
permanent  tourist  camps.  During  the  sum- 
mer a  thousand  tourists  had  contributed  bits 
of  food  to  the  old  bear  and  her  cubs.  But 
now  the  season  was  over,  the  camps  closed 
and  deserted,  and  she  had  brought  her  family 
back  to  rustle  in  the  wild  till  such  time  as  she 
was  ready  to  den. 

She  advanced  upon  the  cabin  without  the 
least  hesitation  and  Woodson  tossed  her 

135 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

scraps  of  food.  For  every  morsel  he  gave 
the  cubs  he  insisted  that  they  stand  up  and 
beg,  holding  the  morsel  out  of  their  reach  till 
they  reared  upon  their  short  hind  legs  and 
stretched  to  take  it  from  his  fingers ;  Wakinee, 
the  black  cub,  and  Wakinoo,  his  ^  brown 
brother,  were  both  reasoning  animals.  After 
two  days  they  rarely  approached  the  man 
without  rearing  up  on  their  hind  feet  and 
advancing  to  meet  him,  waddling  as  two 
bandy-legged  infants. 

Within  a  week  Krag  had  disappeared  from 
the  cliffs.  The  old  ram  had  climbed  to  the 
plateaus  in  search  of  his  ewes  and  lambs. 
Blue  had  dropped  down  to  join  his  does  and 
fawns.  The  wild  things  had  come  to  accept 
the  man  as  one  of  themselves.  He  sat  one  day 
on  the  doorsill  and  watched  the  animals 
following  their  natural  lives.  Two  calf  elk 
rose  from  their  beds  in  the  timber  and  trotted 
into  the  meadow,  where  they  indulged  in  a 
make-believe  duel.  With  heads  pressed  to- 
gether, backs  arched  to  exert  the  last  ounce  of 
strength,  they  shoved  each  other  about  the 
meadow  till  tired  of  the  sport,  then  rejoined 
their  mothers  in  the  timber. 

A  blue  grouse  hen  led  her  brood  of  seven 
chicks  to  the  cabin,  advancing  cautiously  and 
with  many  halts,  to  feed  on  the  crumbs  the 
man  tossed  out  for  them;  forest  chickens 

136 


The  old  bear  launched  forth  and  coasted  for  two  hun- 
dred yards,  the  cubs  following  at  short  intervals. 
Page  137. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

coming  in  to  be  fed  in  the  haunts  of  man. 
The  three  bears  came  out  high  under  the  rims 
and  crossed  on  to  an  old  snow-bank  that 
pitched  down  the  slope.  The  old  bear 
launched  forth  and  coasted  for  two  hundred 
yards  on  her  haunches,  the  cubs  following 
at  short  intervals.  Wakinoo  lost  his  balance 
and  tumbled  end  over  end,  a  whirling  ball  of 
brown  fur.  At  least  twice  a  day  the  bears 
took  their  coast.  On  all  sides  of  him  Woodson 
had  ample  evidence  that  animals  frequently 
indulged  in  play  when  unmolested  by  men. 
The  young  of  all  species  must  have  their 
games,  the  same  as  the  young  of  the  human 
race.  The  does  and  fawns  came  from  the 
timber  and  moved  across  the  meadow  toward 
the  cabin.  When  within  a  few  yards  they 
halted.  In  their  big  brown  eyes  was  friend- 
liness, also  a  hint  of  doubt,  as  if  the  animals 
were  slightly  alarmed  by  their  own  temerity. 
The  scout  tossed  them  crusts  of  bread  and 
they  gradually  neared  till  at  last  a  fawn 
thrust  her  muzzle  toward  Woodson's  out- 
stretched hand,  her  big  ears  working  uneasily, 
then  stretched  her  neck  till  she  could  reach 
the  lump  of  sugar  held  between  his  fingers. 
Aside  from  the  three  bears  the  deer  were  the 
only  creatures  in  the  basin  that  would  feed 
from  his  hand.  The  antelope,  elk  and  moose 
did  not  fear  him  but  would  permit  of  no  such 

137 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

familiarity  as  that.  Even  the  grouse,  though 
they  came  to  feed  at  his  very  feet,  refused 
to  take  crumbs  from  his  fingers. 

Conditions  had  been  bettered  materially 
during  the  past  few  years.  The  game  in  the 
Park  was  holding  its  own.  The  bears  had 
learned  that  their  lives  were  safe  and  had  come 
in  to  make  friends  with  man.  Thousands  of 
tourists  marveled  to  see  black  and  brown 
bears  prowling  the  vicinity  of  hotels  and 
camps  in  search  of  food  and  accepting  scraps 
from  the  hands  of  all  who  would  feed  them. 
And  it  was  no  unusual  occurrence  for  some 
monster  grizzly  to  lurch  from  the  timber  at 
dusk  and  drive  the  blacks  and  browns  away, 
affording  the  tourists  a  sight  of  this  rare  beast, 
so  nearly  extinct  in  the  United  States  except 
within  the  borders  of  the  Yellowstone.  Of 
late  the  tendency  had  been  to  preserve  the 
naturalness  of  the  Park;  and  Woodson  was 
more  or  less  content.  His  end  had  been 
partially  attained. 

But  all  this  had  consumed  years  of  time. 
Woodson  was  well  past  fifty,  nearer  sixty, 
and  the  fringe  of  hair  revealed  below  his 
hatband  showed  gray.  Men  spoke  of  him 
as  Old  Mart,  the  first  Park  Scout.  He  had 
seen  it  all.  Superintendents  had  come  and 
gone,  some  of  them  inefficient  and  indifferent, 
their  administrations  a  backset  and  a  detri- 

138 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

ment  to  the  general  welfare  of  the  reservation  ; 
others  conscientious  and  constructive,  working 
to  repair  the  damage  permitted  by  prior  oc- 
cupants of  the  post. 

The  majority  of  the  men  in  charge  had  been 
sincere  in  their  efforts.  Yet  each  in  turn  had 
believed  that  the  one  best  thing  for  the  Park 
lay  in  increasing  the  military  machine  within 
its  borders.  They  had  been  content  to  let 
the  record  of  their  work  rest  upon  the  in- 
stallation of  added  martial  equipment.  Wood- 
son  reflected  that  this  was  a  natural  state  of 
affairs,  for  the  officers'  hearts  were  in  their 
calling,  military  matters  of  paramount  im- 
portance in  their  eyes. 

It  had  evidently  occurred  to  no  man  to 
raise  the  question  of  whether  or  not  the 
soldiers  were  necessary  to  the  administration 
of  affairs  in  the  Yellowstone.  But  in  his 
heart  Woodson  felt  that  they  were  merely 
an  incumbrance,  the  facts  so  self-evident  that 
he  marveled  that  others  did  not  see  them  at 
a  glance.  He  sat  on  his  doorsill  and  checked 
the  matter  over  in  his  mind. 

Year  by  year  the  military  equipage  had 
been  increased  until  now  a  million-dollar  post 
was  maintained  at  Mammoth;  yet  eighty 
per  cent  of  the  Park  boundary  was  un- 
protected except  by  infrequent  patrols  of  the 
soldiery  and  the  strenuous  efforts  of  the  hand- 

139 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD-  WEST 

ful  of  civilian  scouts.  The  site  for  every 
outlying  station,  without  one  exception,  had 
been  recommended  and  its  installation  urged 
by  Woodson.  Poachers  had  worked  almost 
without  hindrance  on  Falls  River  and  the 
Bechler,  and  though  the  equipment  at  Mam- 
moth was  increasing  steadily,  it  had  required 
ten  years  of  insistence  on  the  part  of  the 
scouts  to  secure  the  recent  establishment  of  a 
station  for  a  sergeant  and  four  men  in  that 
far  corner.  With  a  field  battery  and  three 
troops  of  cavalry  stationed  in  the  Park,  the 
dozen  civilian  scouts  made  ten  arrests  each 
year  for  every  one  accredited  to  all  the  soldiery 
combined.  Woodson  reflected  that  by  elimi- 
nating the  dead  weight  of  hundreds  of  sol- 
diers and  doubling  the  little  force  of  civilian 
scouts  the  efficiency  would  be  increased  two- 
fold and  the  expense  of  administration  cut  to 
ten  per  cent  of  its  present  volume.  But  even 
so  he  knew  that  conditions  were  far  better 
than  in  the  past ;  he  felt  that  some  day  the 
public  would  see  the  situation  in  the  light 
he  saw  it  now  and  insist  that  matters  be  regu- 
lated in  that  way ;  and  he  hoped  that  the  new 
superintendent  would  not  prove  to  be  an 
inefficient  whose  regime  would  counteract  the 
effects  of  the  advancement  won  prior  to  his 
time. 

The  early  fall  snows  were  heavy  and  with 
140 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

only  a  few  days'  interim  between  storms. 
Wapiti  departed  with  his  cows  and  calves, 
headed  for  the  winter  range.  Blue  followed 
a  few  days  later  with  his  does  and  fawns. 
The  three  bears  would  soon  take  to  the  den 
and  sleep  the  long  sleep  till  spring.  The 
moose  wintered  here  in  the  pocket,  browsing 
the  willows  and  aspens  as  the  snow  banked 
deep.  The  two  antelope  would  not  chance 
the  five  miles  of  down-timber  but  would  stay 
where  they  were.  The  hot  springs  near  the 
lower  end  of  the  basin  would  lay  bare  sufficient 
food  to  winter  them  through ;  he  had  known 
this  and  would  not  otherwise  have  brought 
them  to  his  retreat  as  kids.  Snow  was 
falling  when  Woodson  saddled  Teton  and 
packed  the  led  horse  for  the  start  outside. 

The  little  procession  filed  out  of  the  pass 
in  two  feet  of  snow,  the  white  flakes  still 
falling.  "Teton,  this  winter  will  be  a  bad 
one,"  Woodson  prophesied.  "Unless  I've 
misread  the  signs  she  's  going  to  be  rough ; 
hard  on  men  and  game  alike." 


141 


THE  new  superintendent  was  a  man  of 
superb  conceit,  infuriated  by  the  least  sug- 
gestion offered  by  another,  reasoning  in  his 
egotism  that  one  with  the  temerity  to  suggest 
was  guilty,  at  least  by  implication,  of  setting 
his  judgment  above  the  superintendent's  own. 
He  lost  no  opportunity  to  impress  those  about 
him  with  the  fact  that  his  insight  was  in- 
fallible; querulous  and  fault-finding,  he  sub- 
jected all  with  whom  he  came  in  contact  to 
a  chirping  monologue  that  inflated  his  own 
qualifications  and  belittled  those  of  others. 
When  he  traveled  he  was  accompanied  by  an 
imposing  escort.  Civilian  employees  in  the 
reservation  had  left  their  jobs  in  flocks. 
Three  out  of  the  dozen  Park  scouts  had  quit 
their  posts. 

Old  Mart  was  disappointed  but  not  unduly 
surprised.  The  Park  had  been  a  political 
plaything  since  its  conception.  He  knew 
that  the  inefficiency  of  one  man  such  as  the 
present  incumbent  could  counteract  the  con- 
structive progress  made  by  several  able  com- 
mandants during  the  past  few  years. 

142 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Other  officers  had  sought  Woodson's  counsel 
and  profited  by  the  application  of  his  ideas, 
worked  out  through  decades  of  actual  experi- 
ence. With  the  confidence  of  long  service 
and  untarnished  record,  Old  Mart  committed 
the  grave  error  of  volunteering  information 
as  to  the  proper  care  of  the  Park  antelope 
herd.  Hat  in  hand  he  stood  before  his  chief 
and  requested  that  a  detail  of  six  troopers  be 
held  subject  to  his  call  if  occasion  rose. 

The  officer  was  given  to  short  snatches  of 
jerky  repetition  in  his  speech. 

"No,  no,"  he  returned  irritably.  "No,  no. 
They  're  not  shepherds.  They  're  soldiers. 
Fool  idea.  Fool  idea  !"  He  waved  abruptly 
to  signify  that  the  interview  was  ended.  But 
Woodson  stubbornly  urged  his  point. 

"There  's  some  four  thousand  head  ranging 
the  Lamar  and  Yancey  flats,"  he  said.  "When 
we  have  a  heavy  winter  they  're  still  apt  to 
gather  and  drift  down-country,  like  they  did 
years  ago.  We  '11  have  to  watch  them  sharp 
if  they  get  down  to  the  Gardiner  Flat.  A 
few  men  can  get  behind  and  shove  them  back 
up  the  bottoms  till  the  next  storm  hits. 
But  if  we  once  let  'em  drift  across  the  line 
it 's  the  last  we  '11  see  of  them." 

"Antelope  !  Antelope  !"  the  officer  jerked. 
"Who  gives  a  damn  about  antelope?  This 
is  no  pet  stock  farm.  It 's  a  military  post. 

143 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Military  post !  You  hear  me  —  Military 
post!"  Again  he  motioned  to  the  door. 
"  Get  out.  Get  out.  Get  out." 

His  hand  jerked  in  accompaniment  to  his 
words  and  Old  Mart  thought  of  a  prairie  dog 
whose  tail  flipped  in  accentuation  of  every 
chirp.  As  he  passed  down  the  hall  the 
querulous  complaint  drifted  after  him : 

"Damn  the  antelope!  Military  post! 
Military  post !  Want  to  make  a  pet  stock 
farm  out  of  Fort  Yellowstone,  I  'd  like  to 
know?" 

As  a  consequence  of  his  temerity  in  thus 
volunteering  his  advice,  Woodson,  Chief  Scout 
no  longer  but  merely  a  private  in  disgrace, 
had  for  more  than  a  month  been  patrolling 
the  south  line  from  the  Snake  River  Station  to 
Bridger  Lake.  The  snow  lay  six  feet  on  the 
level  round  the  post  on  the  Snake  and  the 
winter  was  little  more  than  half  gone.  His 
route  covered  sixty  miles  with  but  two  snow- 
shoe  cabins  for  overnight  stops  between. 
The  cabin  at  Bridger  Lake  was  but  a  hut. 
Beyond  it,  thirty-five  miles  by  the  route  a 
man  must  take,  lay  the  station  at  Sylvan 
Pass  and  the  intervening  stretch  was  not 
patrolled.  Only  on  every  sixth  night,  when 
he  completed  his  round  and  returned  to  the 
station  on  the  Snake,  did  Woodson  have  an 
hour  of  human  companionship, 

144 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

As  he  left  the  Snake  on  the  start  of  his 
seventh  patrol  of  this  country  he  was  accom- 
panied by  the  swirling  flakes  of  a  storm,  the 
worst  one  of  the  whole  hard  winter.  He 
reached  the  first  snowshoe  cabin  well  after 
dark,  his  webs  sinking  in  eighteen  inches  of 
fresh  snow  that  had  fallen  on  top  of  the  old. 

"This  will  start  the  antelope  to  drifting 
down-country,"  he  mused  aloud.  "If  this 
keeps  up  they  '11  never  stop."  In  his  mind 
he  followed  the  drift  he  had  viewed  in  reality 
a  dozen  times.  "They  're  streaming  all  down 
the  Lamar  by  now,"  he  said.  "The  head  of 
the  drift  is  past  Junction  Butte  and  milling 
through  Yancy  Meadows.  Those  that  were 
at  Yancy  on  the  start  have  about  reached 
the  Gardiner  Flat  by  now." 

It  snowed  all  through  the  night  and  the 
following  day.  At  the  second  snowshoe  cabin 
of  his  patrol  he  prepared  a  late  meal  and 
rolled  in  his  blankets.  But  he  tossed  rest- 
lessly and  sleep  would  not  come  to  him.  He 
visioned  the  Gardiner  Flat  with  the  storm 
sweeping  and  eddying  across  it,  and  thousands 
of  antelope  plodding  toward  the  line.  The 
past  few  years  he  had  looked  upon  the  ante- 
lope as  his  special  charges,  as  a  few  years  back 
he  had  guarded  the  Park  buffalo.  He  was 
doomed  to  failure  in  this  as  well.  He  re- 
viewed his  life,  —  a  succession  of  failures  in 

145 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

everything  he  had  set  out  to  do.  He  knew 
that  by  now  at  least  three  thousand  antelope 
were  on  the  flat  and  would  cross  the  line 
unless  headed  back.  The  whole  scene  was  as 
clear  to  him  as  if  he  looked  upon  it  in  reality. 
He  closed  his  eyes  and  once  again  he  was 
riding  the  Gardiner  Flats  in  a  storm.  It 
seemed  that  he  rode  against  the  wind  with 
the  snow  crystals  stinging  his  face  and  ears. 
He  removed  his  hat  and  swung  it  against  his 
knee  to  free  it  of  the  flakes  banked  on  brim 
and  crown.  A  band  of  small  figures  moved 
slowly  through  the  blinding  swirl  of  flakes  and 
he  veered  Teton  to  head  them.  The  dim 
forms  stopped,  huddled  together  and  stamped 
fretfully.  He  heard  the  gruff  hoarse  bark  of 
an  antelope  doe.  A  dozen  barked  in  chorus. 
Then  the  band  milled  and  turned  back  up- 
country  and  he  hazed  them  along  for  three 
hundred  yards.  The  storm  thickened  and 
closed  in  on  him.  His  eyes  availed  him  little 
now  for  he  could  not  distinguish  objects  at 
ten  yards.  The  gentle  motion  of  his  horse 
was  soothing  and  he  had  ceased  to  feel  the 
cold.  Teton  was  accustomed  to  this  work 
and  could  be  trusted  to  warn  him  of  any 
drift  of  antelope  passing  by.  A  few  miles 
away  three  hundred  troopers  slept  in  com- 
fortable quarters  at  the  post.  He  drowsed  in 
the  saddle,  only  to  wake  with  a  start  as  Teton 

146 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

nickered  and  received  an  answer.  Twenty 
yards  away  another  scout  was  riding  through 
the  storm.  The  two  men  drew  together. 

"We're  holding  'em,  I  guess,"  Woodson 
said.  "Have  you  seen  the  other  two  boys?" 

"Once  each,"  the  other  man  said.  "It's 
a  wonder  they  would  n't  turn  out  a  few  of 
them  damn  troopers  to  help  us  on  a  job  like 
this." 

Woodson  nodded. 

"But  we  '11  have  to  make  out  the  best  we 
can,"  he  said.  "When  it  breaks  we  '11  shove 
them  back  up  the  country." 

"This  is  two  nights  without  sleep,"  the 
other  said.  "Here  's  hoping  she  lifts  before 
the  third  or  I  '11  fall  off  my  horse." 

He  rode  away  and  the  eddy  of  flakes 
swallowed  man  and  horse.  Woodson  gave 
Teton  his  head  and  dozed  in  the  saddle,  then 
roused  as  the  horse  swerved  and  turned  into 
the  teeth  of  the  storm.  His  ears  were  pricked 
alertly  forward.  Woodson  peered  ahead  but 
could  see  only  the  shifting  white.  The  gruff 
bark  of  warning  sounded  from  immediately 
before  the  horse  and  proved  that  Teton  had 
been  right.  The  horse  held  on,  with  an  occa- 
sional twist  to  the  right  or  left,  and  the  man 
knew  that  a  drove  of  antelope  scurried  ahead 
of  them,  though  he  could  not  sight  one  himself. 

"I  wonder  now,  Teton,  if  you  'd  do  that 
147 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

alone  if  I  was  to  pile  off  and  collect  a  little 
sleep,"  he  said.  "But  I  reckon  not." 

The  old  scout  rolled  over  in  his  blankets. 

"But  who  gives  a  damn  about  antelope?" 
he  asked.  "Nobody.  This  is  a  military 
post." 

In  the  first  gray  dawn  he  rose,  swallowed 
a  bite  of  breakfast  and  started  on.  He 
sketched  what  had  actually  occurred  the 
previous  night  on  the  Gardiner  Flat  as 
accurately  as  if  he  had  been  an  eyewitness 
of  the  whole  affair.  Three  thousand  antelope 
had  crossed  outside  in  a  single  night.  The 
new  superintendent  airily  predicted  that 
they  'd  soon  come  back  but  they  never  did, 
and  when  spring  came  there  were  less  than 
four  hundred  pronghorns  in  the  reservation. 
Throughout  the  day,  as  he  covered  the  snowy 
miles  of  the  last  lap  of  his  patrol,  Woodson 
pictured  all  that  was  taking  place. 

"About  now  some  squatter  is  getting  up 
and  is  real  surprised  to  see  a  bunch  of  antelope 
stringing  through  his  pasture,"  he  said,  as  he 
left  the  cabin.  "He  's  reaching  for  his  gun 
to  pile  up  enough  meat  to  run  him  through 
the  winter.  His  next-door  neighbor  is  bent 
on  doing  the  same ;  and  so  on,  all  down  the 
line.  They  '11  shoot  'em  up  all  day  and  keep 
'em  on  the  run.  We  've  seen  the  last  of  them." 

Wroodson  slept  that  night  in  the  snowshoe 
148 


Three  thousand  antelope  had  crossed  outside  in  a 
single  night.     Page  148. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

cabin  at  Bridger  Lake,  the  end  of  his  patrol ; 
but  in  the  morning  he  did  not  start  on  the 
return  trip  to  the  Snake.  Instead  he  held 
straight  on  up  the  Yellowstone,  towing  a 
toboggan.  He  turned  up  Atlantic  Creek 
and  camped  that  night  at  Two  Ocean  Pass. 
The  storm  had  lifted  and  the  wind  rose  to 
whip  the  white  particles  into  motion.  Blind- 
ing clouds  of  wind-driven  crystals  bored  past 
him  as  he  traveled,  and  he  laid  over  a  day 
in  the  heavy  timber,  sheltered  by  a  ledge  that 
broke  the  drive  of  the  gale. 

Mart  was  alone  with  his  thoughts  and 
with  nothing  to  do  but  review  them.  He  had 
failed  in  all  that  he  had  set  out  to  do,  —  an 
absolute,  blank  failure  in  the  eyes  of  men. 
He  had  worked  harder  than  most,  had  fought 
the  elements  when  others  remained  inside, 
and  it  had  brought  him  —  this  !  At  various 
times  he  had  brought  in  the  hardest  characters 
in  three  States,  men  who  had  thought  to  vary 
their  activities  by  making  some  swift  raid  in 
the  Park.  And  throughout  those  three  States 
his  name  was  mentioned  only  with  a  curse; 
for  he  stood  flatly  against  many  things  in 
which  others  deemed  it  their  privilege  as  free 
men  to  indulge  at  will.  One  of  the  greatest 
statesmen  America  has  ever  seen  had  laid  a 
hand  on  his  shoulder  and  thanked  him  for  his 
work. 

149 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

'You  Ve  guarded  the  property  of  the 
millions  against  the  invasion  of  the  few,"  he 
had  said.  "They  don't  fully  realize  that 
fact  yet ;  but  some  day  they  will." 

That  constituted  his  sole  reward  for  nearly 
thirty  years  of  service.  Now  he  was  through, 
he  told  himself.  It  was  not  because  his  was 
a  thankless  job  —  that  part  did  not  greatly 
matter  —  but  for  the  reason  that  it  was  a 
useless  one.  It  was  foredoomed  to  failure, 
had  been  from  the  first.  With  the  cessation 
of  the  wind  he  headed  down  Pacific  Creek 
toward  Jackson  Hole,  having  no  particular 
destination  in  view.  It  had  been  years  since 
he  had  visited  this  locality.  He  remembered 
the  wealth  of  natural  feed,  the  meadows  rank 
with  hay  and  the  open  sidehills  of  the  Grovant 
and  the  Snake  covered  with  luxuriant  stands 
of  grass.  This  was  the  favorite  winter  feeding 
ground  of  the  elk.  They  would  always  have 
elk,  he  decided.  Hide-hunting  had  been 
tabooed  by  law.  The  elk  had  no  particular 
value,  so  men  killed  them  only  as  they  needed 
meat.  Mountain  men  would  always  do  that. 
He  had  never  known  a  locality  where  moun- 
taineers could  be  induced  to  give  up  their 
right  to  kill  what  meat  they  chose. 

But  Wyoming,  first  of  all  the  States  to  take 
steps  before  it  was  too  late,  had  made  every 
effort  to  protect  her  game.  Broad  tracts 

150 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

covering  hundreds  of  square  miles  had  been 
set  aside  as  game  preserves  and  all  shooting 
in  those  parts  prohibited.  Other  States  had 
done  this  thing  but  they  had  waited  till  it 
was  just  too  late.  Wyoming  had  profited  by 
observing  the  mistakes  of  others  and  started 
in  good  time.  More  than  a  hundred  thousand 
elk  fed  in  the  Park  and  the  Wyoming  game 
preserves.  Some  sixty  thousand  head  of 
these  wintered  south  of  the  Park  in  Jackson 
Hole.  Fifteen  thousand  drifted  east  to  winter 
in  the  Shoshone  and  the  Sunlight;  perhaps 
forty  thousand  head  left  the  State,  half  of 
them  moving  west,  out  Madison  way  into 
Idaho,  the  rest  wintering  to  the  north  in  the 
valleys  of  the  Montana  hills.  Small  bands 
had  stopped  along  Pacific  Creek  and  he  saw 
them  feeding  on  exposed  sidehills  cleared  of 
snow  by  the  recent  wind.  But  the  big  droves 
had  moved  farther  down.  He  would  find 
them  on  the  rolling  aspen  hills  of  Spread 
Creek,  Ditch  Creek,  and  the  open  country  of 
the  Grovant,  even  beyond  that  stream  and 
south  to  the  Hoback  Range. 

W7oodson  camped  that  night  at  the  mouth 
of  Pacific  and  the  next  day  crossed  the 
Buffalo  Fork  and  swung  east  up  Spread  Creek. 
Out  across  the  bottoms  he  could  see  snow- 
covered  mounds  which  he  knew  for  hay 
stacks.  The  country  had  settled  up  somewhat 

151 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

in  the  last  ten  years.  Men  had  filed  their 
homestead  rights  on  the  valleys  and  had  cut 
the  natural  meadow  hay  for  winter  feed. 

He  found  the  carcasses  of  a  dozen  elk  in  an 
aspen  clump  and  wondered  what  could  have 
caused  this  wholesale  slaughter.  But  when 
he  viewed  the  south  slopes  that  broke  down 
into  Spread  Creek  he  knew.  These  open 
hills  had  blown  free  of  snow  but  instead  of  the 
wealth  of  grass  he  remembered  from  the  past, 
he  saw  only  bare  dirt  and  gravel  now.  The 
feed  was  gone. 

This  was  open  range,  free  to  any  man  who 
would  graze  his  stock.  Here,  as  in  other 
places,  with  a  prodigality  that  was  character- 
istically American,  men  had  thrown  more 
cows  out  to  summer  in  the  hills  than  the 
range  could  possibly  support.  These  south 
slopes,  last  to  snow  under  in  the  fall  and  first 
to  show  green  in  the  spring,  had  been  fed  off 
to  the  very  grass  roots  the  summer  past. 
There  was  not  a  spear  of  grass  for  the  elk. 
Thousands  were  scattered  through  the  aspens 
and  the  bark  and  twigs  were  stripped  from 
the  smaller  trees. 

"They  're  down  to  eating  the  bark  off  the 
quaking  asps  already,"  Woodson  said.  "And 
the  winter  only  a  little  better  than  half  gone. 
Nothing  but  quakin'  asp  bark.  But  that's 
good  feed.  They  '11  winter  through  on  that." 

152 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Yet  in  his  heart  he  knew  that  the  elk  was 
primarily  a  grazing  animal  and  must  have 
grass;  that  he  could  not  live  exclusively  by 
browsing  as  could  the  moose  and  deer. 

"I  wonder  why  they  don't  go  farther  down," 
he  said  a  dozen  times  during  the  day.  "The 
Grovant  always  was  the  best  feed  country 
in  the  hills." 

It  was  well  after  dark  when  he  headed  out 
across  the  bottoms  toward  a  stack-yard, 
some  six  or  eight  stacks  of  hay  surrounded 
by  a  pole  stockade.  He  was  followed  by  a 
persistent  music  that  haunted  and  sickened 
him,  — :  the  smash  of  brush  as  the  elk  tore 
down  the  aspens,  the  steady,  never-ending 
crunch  of  the  frozen  crust  as  the  ravenous 
brutes  pawed  to  reach  the  grass  that  was  not 
there.  As  he  neared  the  stack-yard,  he 
glimpsed  a  hat-brim  in  silhouette  against  the 
sky  and  stopped. 

"Hello,"  he  called. 

The  man  on  the  stack  knew  that  greeting. 
It  had  a  familiar  ring.  That  invariable, 
laconic  salutation  had  startled  hundreds  of 
offenders  and  it  was  linked  with  the  name  of 
Old  Mart  wherever  poachers  congregated. 
Lee  Page  had  heard  that  casual  greeting  on 
four  separate  occasions  in  the  old  days,  and 
each  time  he  had  seen  his  plunder  confiscated. 
The  last  instance  had  occurred  nine  years 

153 


THE  PASSING   OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

before,  when  he  had  almost  reached  the  line 
with  the  heads  and  scalps  of  a  dozen  bighorn 
rams.  Page  swung  his  rifle  into  line  as  the 
figure  below  him  advanced  a  few  feet. 

"Stop  right  there,"  he  ordered.  "This 
place  is  mine." 

Woodson  stopped. 

"That  you,  Lee?"  he  inquired.  "Seems 
like  I  know  the  voice.  I  've  wondered  where 
you  was  holding  out.  I  was  aiming  to  sleep 
in  the  stacks.  It 's  cold  laying  out  these 
nights." 

"I  ought  to  know,"  Page  returned.  "I  've 
been  laying  out  for  the  last  three  weeks. 
Listen,"  he  went  on.  :<You  're  on  a  false 
lead  if  you  're  after  me.  I  'm  telling  you. 
My  whereabouts  every  day  for  the  past  two 
months  could  be  easy  proved ;  so  I  would  n't 
mind  going  along  —  only  it  '11  clean  me  out 
to  the  last  dollar  I  own  if  I  quit  these  stacks 
for  an  hour.  I  stay  right  here." 

"I  'm  not  looking  for  you,"  Woodson  said. 
"Didn't  even  know  you  was  within  a 
thousand  miles.  I  've  quit  up  above,  any- 
way. Well,  Lee,  I  '11  be  sauntering  along. 
Any  stacks  anywheres  close  around?" 

"Not  right  close,"  said  Page.  He  gazed 
after  the  figure  disappearing  in  the  night. 
"Better  crawl  up  and  burrow  in  for  the  night, 
Mart,"  he  called.  "There 's  considerable 

154 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

space.  I  guess  you  're  not  looking  for  me  — 
or  you  would  n't  be  starting  off." 

"All  right,  Lee."  Woodson  turned  back. 
"No ;  I  was  telling  you  straight.  I  've  quit." 

A  fourteen-foot  stockade  of  heavy  poles 
had  been  erected  round  the  stack-yard  but  the 
snow  had  drifted  halfway  to  the  top. 

"Hand  me  up  your  toboggan  rope,"  Page 
said.  "I'll  pull  and  you  give  her  a  boost 
from  down  there.  We  '11  put  her  inside  the 
fence.  Load  lashed  on  so  it  won't  spill  off  ?  " 

"Yes,  it's  lashed,"  Woodson  assured  him. 
"But  I  '11  just  leave  it  here." 

"It'll  get  smashed  flat  out  there,"  Page 
demurred.  "Let 's  drag  her  in." 

Wooason  handed  him  the  rope  and  they 
hoisted  the  toboggan  and  its  light  load  over 
the  fence.  Page  gave  him  a  hand  to  the 
top  of  the  nearest  stack.  W7oodson  scooped 
away  the  snow,  scratched  out  a  trough  in  the 
hay,  unrolled  his  blankets  and  burrowed  in. 

"So  you  've  quit  up  above,"  said  Page. 

"It 's  a  losing  game,"  Mart  stated.  "I  'd 
have  been  a  considerable  better  off  if  I  'd 
found  that  out  thirty  years  before ;  and  that 's 
a  fact." 

"Likely  we  Ve  both  played  losing  ends," 
said  Page.  "Neither  extreme  is  what  you 
might  call  remunerative,  and  a  pile  of  grief 
goes  with  either  way.  I  'm  what  you  might 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

call  middle-aged,  fifty-eight  last  spring,  and 
this  little  filing  and  fifty -odd  head  of  cows  is 
all  I  've  got  to  show  for  it." 

With  only  their  heads  protruding,  ear-flaps 
tied  down  to  shut  out  the  bite  of  frost,  the 
two  old-time  enemies  alternately  talked  and 
drowsed.  A  scattering  volley  of  rifle  shots 
sounded  from  far  down  the  bottoms.  Then, 
from  some  two  miles  away,  came  the  heavy 
detonation  of  a  shotgun,  bellowing  forth  on 
the  still  cold  night  in  a  quick  succession  of 
reports.  Woodson  could  see  the  red  flashes 
before  the  sound  of  the  shots  reached  his  ears. 
In  an  hour  he  heard  some  two  hundred  shots. 
From  all  sides  came  the  music  of  famine  and 
slow  death.  Five  hundred  dim  shapes  prowled 
the  flat,  disregarding  the  proximity  of  man 
and  riveted  to  the  spot  by  the  sight  of  the 
hay  which  might  mean  life  if  they  could  but 
reach  it.  The  crackle  and  crash  of  brush 
sounded  from  adjacent  slopes  as  the  famished 
horde  tore  down  the  trees  and  stripped  the 
bark.  And  through  it  all  came  that  awful 
crunch  as  ten  thousand  hoofs  pawed  desper- 
ately at  the  frozen  crust.  Again  there  came 
the  roar  of  the  shotgun  and  the  sound  of 
general  firing  for  miles  down  the  valley. 
Jackson  Hole  had  long  been  held  up  to  the 
world  as  a  nest  of  poachers.  Here  was  the 
home  of  the  tusk-hunter,  the  man  who  shot 

156 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

down  elk  merely  for  the  price  of  their  teeth. 
But  Woodson  had  not  imagined  it  was  so  bad 
as  this ;  that  men  could  be  so  vindictive  as 
to  kill  elk  or  drive  them  off  when  starving 
rather  than  scatter  a  few  forkfuls  of  hay  which 
might  save  their  lives. 

Suddenly  there  came  a  clatter  of  hoofs  and 
the  splintering  crash  of  poles.  Page's  gun 
flared  again  and  again  in  the  face  of  fifty  elk 
that  had  stormed  the  crib  in  a  bunch.  They 
shrank  back  before  this  fusilade. 

"It 's  hell,  Mart,"  Page  said.  "The  poor 
devils  are  starving  fast." 

Woodson  had  experienced  a  sudden  glimpse 
of  the  other  side.  He  had  thought  he  knew 
all  about  elk  but  this  desperate  storming  of 
stack-yards  in  the  face  of  men  was  new  to 
him.  It  accounted  for  all  that  shooting 
down  the  valley,  and  for  Page's  assertion 
that  he  would  be  cleaned  out  if  he  left  his 
stacks  for  an  hour.  All  down  the  length  of 
the  Hole  a  hundred  settlers  were  sleeping  in 
their  stacks,  unable  to  leave  them  for  a  minute 
in  the  night  lest  a  thousand  head  of  starving 
brutes  should  fall  on  their  hay  and  devour  it, 
dooming  the  settlers'  own  cows  to  starvation 
before  spring. 

"There  's  been  a  dozen  men  through  here 
in  the  last  couple  of  years  that  have  lost  every 
hoof  they  owned  by  going  to  sleep  on  the  job 

157 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

and  leaving  their  stacks  unguarded  for  one 
night,"  Page  explained.  "Harvey  lost  two 
hundred  head  of  cows  last  winter  because  the 
elk  got  his  hay.  Only  last  week  they  tore 
down  Peterson's  stack-yard  in  an  hour.  His 
cows  will  winter-kill  as  sure  as  fate,  only 
maybe  his  neighbors  can  let  him  have  a  little 
of  their  surplus  to  feed  him  through." 

"They  won't  stand  for  this  sort  of  thing," 
Woodson  prophesied.  "They  '11  lose  patience 
and  kill  every  elk  in  the  Jackson  Hole  if  this 
keeps  up.  I  expect  the  most  of  the  shots  we 
heard  to-night  was  fired  into  elk  instead  of  in 
the  air." 

"Some,"  Page  admitted.  "But  not  as 
many  as  you  'd  think.  A  few  of  them  gut- 
shoot  the  critters  and  let  'em  crawl  off  some- 
wheres  to  die.  Barton  boasts  that  he  's  gut- 
shot  three  hundred  elk  this  year.  There  's 
a  few  like  him  scattered  round.  But  mostly 
folks  make  the  best  of  it.  They  're  sorry  for 
the  poor  devils  and  would  feed  'em  if  they 
could.  We  'd  most  of  us  hate  to  see  'em  go 
the  way  everything  else  has  gone.  But  this 
business  of  sleeping  out  and  standing  guard, 
night  after  night,  and  year  after  year,  in  forty 
below  weather  and  in  heavy  storms,  that 's 
enough  to  make  any  man  show  his  teeth." 

Three  times  during  the  night  bands  of 
starving  elk  stormed  the  crib,  and  three  times 

158 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Page  drove  them  back.  With  the  first  morn- 
ing light  the  most  of  the  animals  withdrew 
to  adjacent  hills  but  some  fifty  head,  too  far 
gone  to  heed  the  presence  of  men,  remained 
and  bedded  in  the  flat. 

"Come  up  to  the  house,"  Page  said. 
"We  '11  stir  up  a  bite  to  eat." 

Woodson  followed  him  to  the  cabin  set 
back  among  the  trees  at  the  mouth  of  a  gulch 
that  broke  back  into  the  hills.  The  bawling 
of  cows  issued  from  the  timber  back  of  the 
house.  Page  had  fenced  the  entrance  to  the 
gulch  to  hold  them  there.  When  the  meal 
was  finished  he  hitched  a  team  to  a  hay- 
rack built  on  a  sled  and  the  two  men  drove  to 
the  meadow  for  a  load  of  feed.  Woodson 
noted  that  the  elk  rose  to  their  feet  and 
watched  their  approach.  At  first  he  attrib- 
uted this  to  a  revival  of  their  fear  of  man; 
but  he  observed  that  a  number  of  cows  and 
calves  advanced  toward  the  sleigh.  Their 
course  lay  over  a  road  packed  on  successive 
snows  by  repeated  trips  of  the  sled.  The 
four-foot  layer  of  snow  was  trampled  flat  on 
either  side  of  this  single  trail. 

"You  've  been  feeding  them,"  he  said. 

"Now  and  then,"  Page  confessed.  "I 
don't  want  'em  dying  all  over  the  place  and 
have  to  put  in  the  whole  spring  snaking  car- 
casses out  of  the  field.  I  throw  out  a  little 

159 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

to  the  weak  bunch  in  the  morning.  It  gives 
'em  strength  to  make  it  back  to  the  hills  and 
rustle  round  among  the  quakin'  asp.  They  '11 
all  be  gone  in  a  few  more  years  of  this.  Damn 
it  all,  a  man  that 's  lived  his  life  ahead  of  the 
railroad,  like  you  and  me,  hates  to  think  what 
the  old  hills  will  be  like  when  the  last  hoof  of 
game  is  cleaned  and  the  last  tree  cut." 

It  came  to  Woodson  that  men  were  much 
alike.  He  himself  had  started  as  a  killer,  had 
shot  down  more  buffalo  than  there  were  left 
alive  in  the  world  to-day.  Every  man  he 
knew  who  stood  for  conservation  to-day  had 
stood  for  destruction  yesterday.  It  was  not 
such  inconsistency  as  it  seemed  on  the  surface, 
merely  that  realization  came  soonest  to  the 
ones  who  had  participated  in  the  waste  them- 
selves and  saw  the  end  looming  just  ahead. 

The  two  men  loaded  the  sleigh  from  a  stack- 
butt  and  as  they  started  out  across  the 
meadow  the  elk  crowded  around  them,  the 
stronger  ones  shoving  the  weaker  animals 
aside.  Page  tossed  forkfuls  of  hay  high  in  the 
air  and  the  wind  fanned  it  out  for  twenty 
yards  so  that  all  could  have  a  chance  at  it. 
This  was  a  strange  sight  to  Woodson,  elk 
feeding  at  the  end  of  a  pitchfork  the  same  as 
domestic  cows.  They  returned  for  a  second 
load  and  hauled  it  to  Page's  stock  in  the 
gulch. 

160 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

An  hour  later,  as  he  looked  from  the  window 
of  the  cabin,  Woodson  saw  five  cow-elk  pass 
through  the  dooryard.  They  jumped  the 
five-foot  fence  and  fed  with  Page's  cows. 
Woodson  stepped  outside  and  walked  to  the 
fence.  The  elk  threw  up  their  heads  for  a 
brief  look  at  the  intruder,  crowded  to  the 
far  side  of  the  cows  and  resumed  their  feeding. 
Mart  went  back  inside. 

"How  much  surplus  feed  have  you  got  — 
over  what  will  run  you  through  till  spring?" 
he  inquired  of  Page.  "I  'd  like  to  experi- 
ment." 

"Maybe  thirty  ton,"  Page  estimated. 

"What 's  the  going  price  ?" 

"It 's  bringing  round  ten  dollars  down 
below,"  said  Page. 

"I  '11  buy  you  out,"  Woodson  offered. 
"I  'm  going  to  try  something  out." 

"We  '11  cut  it  in  half,"  Page  said.  "It 's 
likely  that  before  spring  I  'd  have  fed  it  all 
into  'em,  anyway.  I  was  sort  of  experi- 
menting, myself.  We  '11  split  the  deal.  You 
stay  here  and  we  '11  see  how  feeding  elk  by 
hand  works  out." 

The  two  men  carefully  doled  out  their 
feed  and  hoped  for  a  chinook  but  the  cold 
held  without  a  break.  After  two  weeks 
Woodson  set  forth  for  a  rapid  survey  of 
conditions  farther  down  where  the  big  herds 

161 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

wintered  on  the  Grovant,  the  best  grass 
country  in  the  hills.  His  way  was  lined 
with  the  remains  of  the  starved,  carcasses 
scattered  in  hundreds  through  the  aspens, 
and  he  found  the  Grovant  grubbed  off  to 
the  very  roots.  Instead  of  exposed  shoulders 
carpeted  with  the  pale  brown  of  cured  feed, 
as  he  had  anticipated,  they  loomed  between 
the  white  snowbanks  in  many  colors,  according 
to  the  composition  of  the  soil ;  greenish  on 
the  clay  slopes,  yellow  on  the  gravel  hills, 
with  here  and  there  a  darker  splotch  of  black 
muck  round  the  springs  and  sidehill  bogs, 
naked  and  devoid  of  vegetation. 

But  the  situation  was  not  without  its  ray 
of  hope.  Woodson  found  many  ranches  win- 
tering little  bunches  of  elk  through  with  their 
cows.  Others  would  have  done  the  same 
except  that  they  were  short  of  feed.  The 
State  had  made  an  appropriation  to  feed  the 
elk  and  all  surplus  hay  in  the  valley  had  been 
purchased. 

The  chinook  came  at  last  and  broke  the 
grip  of  winter.  No  more  heavy  storms  came 
to  finish  the  destruction  and  spring  broke 
across  the  hills.  Woodson  left  Page's  for 
another  survey  of  the  lower  bottoms.  He 
stood  on  a  shoulder  overlooking  the  valley 
of  the  Grovant  and  estimated  that  he  could 
move  for  two  miles  either  way  from  where  he 

162 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

stood  by  leaping  from  one  to  the  next  of  the 
bodies  of  the  winter-killed.  He  had  seen  at 
least  five  thousand  carcasses  during  the  day 
and  could  see  that  many  more  from  where 
he  stood.  They  lay  in  the  open  and  in  the 
heavy  timber.  Every  way  he  turned  he 
found  them,  gruesome  evidence  of  the  winter's 
toll. 

He  stayed  with  Page  till  the  early  part  of 
June.  The  elk  had  lingered  in  the  low 
country  to  calve  and  he  made  one  last  trip 
to  the  Grovant  before  returning  to  the  valley 
where  he  had  left  Teton  and  his  other  horses 
in  the  fall.  The  big  herds  were  moving 
back  to  the  summer  range  and  for  all  of  the 
appalling  loss  of  the  last  few  months,  he  could 
see  that  there  were  still  elk  in  plenty.  The 
river  was  at  flood  tide  from  melting  drifts  and 
he  stood  with  a  dozen  ranchers  and  watched 
a  spectacle  such  as  is  given  to  but  few  men  to 
witness.  Thousands  of  cows  had  plunged  in 
and  crossed  the  swollen  stream.  On  the 
far  side  the  calves  were  huddled  in  swarms, 
loath  to  risk  the  boiling  current.  On  one 
side  the  cows  yelped  and  entreated;  five 
thousand  calves  squealed  in  unison  from 
the  other  shore.  The  water  between  was 
dotted  by  the  heads  of  scores  of  swimming 
cows,  some  fresh  arrivals  just  up  from  the 
south,  other  cows  crossing  back  to  nurse 

163 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

their  calves  and  to  try  and  wheedle  their 
offspring  into  the  stream.  An  average  of 
two  hundred  calves  an  hour  took  to  the 
water.  Many  were  swept  away,  turning 
over  and  over  in  the  suck  of  the  current, 
but  the  majority  effected  safe  crossings  and 
joined  the  cows.  The  younger  men  that 
viewed  this  scene  were  inclined  to  scoff  at  the 
death  toll  of  the  preceding  months.  What 
mattered  such  a  loss  in  the  face  of  this  abun- 
dance ?  But  those  of  long  experience  shook 
their  heads.  A  decade  before  they  had 
been  able  to  see  ten  thousand  antelope  from 
this  same  point.  Now  an  antelope  was  a 
curiosity  in  Jackson  Hole. 

A  middle-aged  man  stood  among  the  group. 
There  was  a  haunting  familiarity  about  him 
that  Woodson  could  not  quite  place.  The 
man  nodded. 

"I  reckon  you  Ve  forgot  about  me,"  he 
said.  "Do  you  recollect  where  we  met  up 
last?" 

Woodson's  memory  flashed  back  across  the 
years.  It  was  Rice,  the  boy  who  had  planned 
a  hunt  with  Hanson  to  supply  meat  for  the 
mining  camps;  Rice,  but  a  boy  no  longer. 

"I  thought  you  was  hunting  deer  for  the 
mines  down  in  the  Colorado  hills,"  he  said. 

Rice  grinned  and  shook  his  head. 

"Where  have  you  been  living  at?"  he 
164 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

inquired.  "The  deer  have  been  gone  from 
the  Gore  Range  and  the  Rabbit  Ear  for 
fifteen  years.  Ten-day  open  seasons,  some- 
times only  four  —  can't  hunt  when  there  's 
snow  on  —  one  buck  deer  with  horns."  He 
waved  a  hand  at  the  elk  droves  along  the 
river.  "One  fall  I  saw  mule  deer  coming 
down  to  the  Oak  Hills  to  winter,  thicker  than 
what  them  elk  are,  by  far.  I  've  seen  twenty 
thousand  in  a  day  and  shot  a  hundred  for  their 
saddles  from  one  stand.  Two  years  later 
there  was  n't  enough  deer  to  pay  you  to 
outfit  for  a  hunt." 

The  young  men  present  smiled  at  this 
apparent  exaggeration;  but  the  old  settlers 
did  not  smile.  There  were  those  among  them 
who  had  hunted  for  the  Colorado  mining 
camps  themselves  and  had  seen  long  strings 
of  freight  wagons  piled  high  with  saddles  of 
venison. 

"What  happened  to  the  deer  in  two  years 
if  they  was  ever  as  thick  as  these  elk?" 
a  young  man  demanded.  "Where  did  they 
all  go  to?" 

"When  I  left  down  there  the  settlers  was 
saying  that  they  'd  changed  their  range," 
Rice  said.  "They  was  sitting  round  waiting 
for  'em  to  come  back  to  their  old  stamping 
ground.  They  're  waiting  yet." 

Rice  had  later  shot  ducks  for  the  market 
165 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

on  the  prairie  lakes  and  marshes  of  the 
Middle  West. 

c  "There  was  real  money  there,"  he  stated 
to  those  assembled.  "I  Jve  killed  better  than 
three  hundred  bluebills  and  redheads  in  one 
morning's  flight.  I  averaged  better  than 
ten  dollars  a  day  for  two  months,  spring  and 
fall,  and  made  enough  to  last  me  through 
the  year.  The  last  few  seasons  it  was  harder 
and  I  didn't  clear  much  over  five  a  day.  It 
seems  like  the  duck  flights  through  the 
marshes  has  slacked  off.  I  expect  likely  the 
big  flights  have  been  going  round  some  other 
way."  His  face  turned  somber  as  he  looked 
back  over  a  past  of  plenty  as  compared  to 
the  lean  days  of  now.  "The  old  days  are 
gone  for  good,"  he  lamented.  "They  Ve 
passed  a  damn-fool  law  that  says  a  man  can't 
sell  his  ducks." 


166 


XI 


WOODSON  pulled  up  his  horse  to  view  the 
stump  of  a  tree  that  stood  even  with  his  eyes 
as  he  sat  in  the  saddle.  That  tree,  a  six- 
inch  lodgepole,  had  been  felled  with  an  ax 
and  its  height  told  him  it  had  been  cut  in  the 
winter  or  early  spring  while  the  drifts  lay 
deep  in  the  timber.  It  stood  in  a  dense 
jungle  of  down-timber,  not  even  an  elk  trail 
near  it,  close  under  the  western  base  of  the 
Absarokas  where  men  seldom  traveled.  It 
had  not  been  cut  for  firewood  for  the  work 
had  been  done  when  the  tree  was  green. 
This  single  stump  challenged  his  curiosity 
and  he  circled  the  spot  to  determine  what 
use  had  been  made  of  the  trunk.  Even  as  he 
rode  he  assured  himself  that  the  matter  was 
of  small  interest  to  him,  that  he  had  no  further 
object  in  ferreting  out  the  meaning  of  any 
such  evidence  in  the  Park.  The  fact  that 
he  had  been  inside  the  reservation  for  more 
than  a  month  without  his  presence  having 
been  suspected  was  ample  evidence  of  the 
ease  with  which  malefactors  could  operate. 
It  was  evidence  too,  he  reflected,  of  the 

167 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

demoralized  condition  of  the  little  force  of 
scouts.  Good  men  had  quit  when  subjected 
to  petty  persecutions  ;  and  to  him  that  meant 
that  the  Park  was  practically  unguarded,  for 
he  considered  the  good  accomplished  by  the 
patrols  of  troopers  was  but  negligible;  but 
he  was  through  with  all  that,  he  told  himself 
again,  so  why  dwell  upon  it  ? 

It  was  growing  dark  so  he  made  only  a 
superficial  survey  of  the  neighborhood  before 
heading  Teton  back  the  way  he  had  come. 
When  night  shut  down  about  him  he  gave  the 
horse  his  head  and  Teton  took  him  straight 
to  the  pass  leading  into  the  pocket  that 
sheltered  his  little  cabin.  He  stripped  the 
saddle  from  the  horse  and  prepared  a  bite  to 
eat,  then  sat  upon  the  sill  and  smoked. 
!  He  had  lingered  here  for  a  full  month  since 
gathering  his  horses,  attempting  to  reach  a 
decision  as  to  what  he  should  do  next ;  for 
now  that  he  had  quit  the  force  he  found 
himself  without  a  purpose,  one  of  the  army 
of  oldish  men  that  are  scattered  through  the 
hills  with  no  definite  object  but  to  live  from 
day  to  day,  prospecting  or  following  the 
trap  line. 

Woodson  had  no  immediate  need  of  funds 
and  for  the  present  was  content  to  linger 
here.  The  purr  of  the  little  waterfall  sliding 
down  the  face  of  the  cliff  was  soothing.  This 

168 


The  moose  could  winter  in  the  heavy  drifts  where  all 
others  starved.     Page  169. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

was  home.  A  fox  squalled  from  the  high 
ridges  above  timber  line  and  a  coyote  lifted 
his  voice  in  an  eerie  howl  from  the  timber 
just  outside  the  pass.  The  invasion  of  the 
hills  by  these  little  yellow  prairie  wolves 
was  but  one  of  the  many  transitions  he  had 
witnessed  in  the  last  two  decades.  He  had 
seen  the  country  when  moose  were  practically 
unknown  and  now  they  ranged  in  hundreds 
in  the  swampy  bottoms,  increasing  as  the 
other  game  died  out.  These  big  migrants 
from  the  north  and  the  yellow  invaders  from 
the  plains  were  the  only  two  that  held  their 
own;  the  moose  for  the  reason  that  they 
could  winter  in  the  heavy  drifts  where  all 
others  starved;  the  coyotes  because  their 
cunning  was  superior  to  all  the  wiles  that  man 
might  employ  against  them,  adapting  them- 
selves to  new  conditions  more  rapidly  than 
men  could  invent  new  means  to  harass  their 
kind.  With  the  elk  it  was  now  more  of  a 
question  of  winter  range  than  of  shooting. 
On  the  north  and  west  the  cowmen  of  Idaho 
and  the  sheepmen  of  Montana  grazed  their 
stock  to  the  very  Park  line  and  fed  off  every 
spear  of  grass. 

Woodson  had  been  at  the  game  too  long, 
had  wandered  the  hills  and  shifted  from 
point  to  point  for  too  many  years  to  be 
able  now  to  remain  wholly  inactive,  and  to 

169 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

relieve  this  restlessness  he  followed  long 
self-imposed  patrols  along  the  base  of  the 
Absarokas  either  way  from  the  mouth  of  his 
retreat.  In  the  intervals  between  these  jaunts 
he  whiled  away  the  time  with  the  wild  things 
that  made  up  his  colony.  None  of  them 
feared  him  and  the  elk  and  moose  stood 
unconcerned  at  his  close  approach,  but  only 
the  little  band  of  mule  deer,  now  increased  by 
three  fawns,  paid  him  the  compliment  of 
repaying  his  calls.  At  least  once  each  day 
they  came  to  the  cabin  and  ate  biscuits  or 
lumps  of  sugar  from  his  hand.  The  bears 
had  long  since  departed  for  the  vicinity  of 
the  hotels  and  permanent  tourists'  camp. 
The  bull  elk  and  the  mule-deer  buck  had 
retired  to  their  lofty  nooks,  nursing  their 
velvet  growth  from  harm,  and  seldom  ven- 
tured into  the  bottoms  except  for  brief  visits 
to  the  salt-lick.  The  blue  grouse  hen  had 
mothered  a  second  brood  of  chicks  and  these 
fed  in  the  dooryard,  as  had  the  flock  of  the 
preceding  year.  All  these  interests  filled  his 
day  but  there  was  too  a  certain  sense  of 
emptiness,  as  if  his  lifelong  ambition  had 
trickled  swiftly  to  an  end  of  faltering  futility, 
all  past  effort  of  no  avail.  And  always  there 
came  a  day  when  old  habit  was  reasserted 
and  drove  him  forth  to  ride  the  hills  for  some 
sign  of  an  unfriendly  presence  in  his  domain. 

170 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD   WEST 

His  book  was  the  book  of  the  open,  and  the 
telltale  sign  of  the  forest  floor  unfolded  be- 
neath his  practiced  eyes,  as  easily  inter- 
preted as  the  open  page  of  print  is  intelligible 
to  the  eyes  of  other  men.  Little  escaped 
him  and  there  was  no  displacement  of  natural 
deposit  too  minute  to  have  its  meaning ;  faint 
streaks  of  slanting  grass  among  the  upright 
growth  of  the  meadows,  the  slightest  dis- 
turbance of  the  pine-straw  that  denoted  the 
passing  of  scuffing  feet ;  depressions  in  gravel 
bars  or  the  mud  of  the  stream  beds,  almost 
obliterated  by  the  wash  and  swirl  of  water; 
the  smallest  rock  dislodged  from  its  former 
bed  ;  all  these  told  their  story.  But  of  late  the 
only  bit  of  sign  worthy  of  interest  had  been  that 
single  stump  in  the  timber  some  ten  miles  from 
his  retreat.  That  challenged  his  curiosity 
and  a  few  days  later  he  returned  to  the  spot. 
He  circled  the  vicinity  and  found  a  second 
stump  cut  some  eight  feet  from  the  ground. 
Within  a  limited  area  he  discovered  a  score 
of  others  scattered  through  the  timber.  Par- 
ticles still  adhering  to  the  stumps  told  him 
that  the  tops  had  been  draped  with  moss 
when  fresh  cut,  undoubtedly  with  a  view 
to  breaking  the  glaring  white  of  the  ax- 
work  which  might  loom  up  and  attract  the  eye 
of  any  man  traveling  through  the  neigh- 
borhood. 

171 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

"Somewheres  round  here  he's  built  a  hut," 
Woodson  said.  "We  '11  have  to  locate  that 
hang-out,  Teton.  These  trees  were  cut  a  year 
ago  last  winter,  while  the  snow  was  on." 

After  an  hour's  search  he  found  it,  a  hut 
six  feet  by  eight,  located  in  a  clump  of  feathery 
young  jack  pines. 

"This  here  was  built  when  the  ground  was 
firm,"  Woodson  decided.  "Likely  he  cut 
his  logs  and  dragged  'em  here  on  the  snow, 
then  came  back  and  built  the  place  in  the 
summer  when  the  drifts  were  gone.  I  wonder 
now,  Teton,  just  what  his  game  was.  There  's 
no  beaver  near  enough  round  to  pay  him  to 
operate  from  here.  Maybe  he  had  out  some 
marten  lines  last  winter.  There 's  plenty 
of  marten  running  these  high  ridges.  Wre  '11 
lay  over  here  a  day  or  two  and  find  out  what 
he  was  doing  here." 

He  led  Teton  some  two  hundred  yards  up 
the  slope  to  picket  him  for  the  night  in  a 
sidehill  park  that  opened  out  in  the  timber. 
He  was  not  left  long  in  doubt  as  to  the  man's 
occupation  in  the  locality.  Just  outside  the 
open  park,  behind  a  windfall  jam,  he  found 
the  bones  of  a  six-point  bull.  The  animal 
had  not  lain  there  many  months  for  the  bones 
were  not  bleached  dead-white  but  showed 
faintly  pink.  The  shoulder  blades  were 
shattered  by  the  passage  of  a  heavy  ball. 

172 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

This  was  no  winter-killed  animal,  —  the  old 
bull  had  been  shot  down  for  his  teeth.  There 
were  six  more  carcasses  in  the  timber  on 
that  side  of  the  open  space.  Woodson  pro- 
spected the  vicinity  for  three  days,  and  his 
search  revealed  a  total  of  sixty  carcasses 
of  bull  elk.  These  mute  witnesses  told  him 
exactly  the  months  that  the  other  man  had 
hunted  here.  Some  carried  fully  matured 
antlers,  the  points  polished  for  the  running 
moon,  showing  that  they  had  been  killed  the 
preceding  fall.  The  skulls  of  others  were 
adorned  with  antlers  well  matured  but  still 
revealing  shreds  of  velvet,  killed  in  late 
summer  the  year  before.  Still  others  had 
been  slain  while  the  velvet  growth  had 
attained  but  small  proportions.  These  last 
had  been  killed  in  the  spring  just  past. 

"He  came  in  and  put  up  that  hut  late  in 
the  summer  and  hunted  up  till  the  herds 
drifted  out  in  the  fall,"  Woodson  said.  "  Then 
he  caught  the  first  upward  drift  this  spring 
and  hunted  for  a  month.  We  '11  put  out, 
Teton,  and  not  leave  too  much  sign  round 
the  place.  It 's  likely  he  '11  come  back  in 
again  this  fall." 

The  thing  he  had  found  weighed  on  the 
old  man's  mind.  A  definite  value  had  now 
been  placed  on  the  elk.  A  pair  of  teeth  were 
worth  from  ten  to  fifty  dollars  on  the  market. 

173 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

The  sixty  animals  he  had  discovered  con- 
stituted but  a  portion  of  one  man's  tusk- 
hunting  operations  for  two  months  in  the  fall 
and  one  month  in  the  spring.  There  would 
be  easily  that  many  scattered  round  the  hills 
and  which  he  had  failed  to  locate,  —  shot 
down  for  their  teeth  and  left  to  rot.  The 
coyotes  and  cats  had  picked  the  carcasses, 
the  bears  had  cleaned  up  every  morsel  that 
was  left  when  they  came  from  their  dens  in 
the  spring,  and  now  the  porcupine  gnawed 
the  bones  and  scored  deep  grooves  in  the 
horns.  All  these  magnificent  creatures  shot 
down  that  men  in  distant  spots  might  adorn 
their  vest  fronts  with  trinkets  of  another's 
killing. 

"A  bad  piece  of  work,  Teton,"  Woodson 
said.  "Human  vanity  breaks  out  in  many  a 
queer  way  from  time  to  time.  We  have  n't 
altered  much  in  the  last  few  thousand  years. 
Our  inclinations  still  run  about  the  same, 
only  tastes  have  changed.  The  cannibal 
wore  a  boar-tusk  through  his  nose.  Likely 
the  buck  Indian  frowned  on  that  as  right 
poor  sort  of  taste  and  instead  he  decked  him- 
self out  in  bear  claws,  and  porcupine  quills. 
Now  we  consider  that  a  downright  vain  and 
outlandish  style  of  get-up  —  so  we  men  folks 
of  to-day  modestly  drape  a  cluster  of  bull- 
elk  teeth  on  our  paunch." 

174 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Twice  during  the  next  month  Woodson 
revisited  the  vicinity  of  the  hut  but  found  no 
evidence  of  the  man's  return.  The  first 
snow  of  the  autumn  fell  and  melted  except 
in  the  more  sheltered  places  and  he  rode  to 
the  spot  again,  then  held  on  past  it.  He  sat 
his  horse  on  the  shoulder  of  a  spur  and  gazed 
absently  off  across  the  hills.  A  raven  swooped 
in  spirals  and  pitched  into  the  timber  a  mile 
away.  Three  others  of  the  big  black  scaven- 
gers winged  their  way  to  the  spot,  one  utter- 
ing guttural  croaks,  the  remaining  pair  emit- 
ting throaty  whistles  with  a  rising  inflection 
as  if  to  inquire  if  all  were  well.  Woodson 
knew  well  what  this  presaged;  the  meat- 
eating  birds  of  the  hills  were  assembling  for  a 
banquet.  He  headed  Teton  for  the  spot, 
guided  by  the  conversation  of  the  ravens. 
A  score  of  black  shapes  flapped  away  at  his 
approach,  raucously  protesting  this  inter- 
ruption of  their  feast. 

A  bull  elk  lay  in  the  timber,  shot  through  the 
lungs,  his  tushes  gone. 

"He  's  working  again,  Teton,"  Woodson 
said.  "It 's  likely  when  he  came  back  to  the 
hut  he  found  we  5d  been  there  and  discovered 
his  hang-out.  Chances  are  that  he  saw  where 
you  'd  been  picketed  in  the  little  park.  Now 
he  's  operating  from  some  other  base." 

He  dismounted  and  scouted  round  the 
175 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

scene  of  the  kill  but  found  not  even  a  heel 
print.  The  work  had  been  done  while  the 
snow  was  on,  but  even  so  there  should  have 
been  a  few  telltale  depressions  where  the 
killers'  boots  had  pressed  the  melting  snow 
down  into  the  soft  earth  underneath.  But 
there  was  not  a  scratch. 

"We'll  pick  him  up,  Teton,"  Woodson 
predicted.  "It 's  only  a  question  of  days." 

But  after  the  expiration  of  two  weeks  he 
was  not  so  sure.  The  bird  flights  led  him  to  a 
dozen  freshly  killed  bulls,  but  he  had  yet  to 
find  a  single  trace  of  the  killer.  For  the 
first  time  in  his  life  he  found  all  his  knowl- 
edge of  hill-craft  set  at  naught.  The  poacher 
seemed  a  phantom  slayer  who  plied  his 
bloody  trade  and  left  no  sign.  Never  once 
had  WToodson  found  so  much  as  a  boot-print. 
Solid  balls  had  slain  the  elk  but  the  report  of  a 
single  shot  had  failed  to  reach  his  ears ;  yet 
he  held  doggedly  to  his  purpose. 

He  knew  that  the  poacher's  rifle  was 
equipped  with  a  silencer,  which  accounted 
for  his  soundlessness,  and  he  waited  and 
watched  for  some  signs  that  would  consti- 
tute the  equally  simple  key  to  the  reason 
he  could  travel  the  hills  and  leave  no  track. 
The  fall  storms  fell  and  melted  and  the 
killing  went  on  unchecked.  Woodson  knew 
that  he  himself  left  tracks  for  the  other  man  to 

176 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

read,  that  the  tusk-hunter  must  be  aware 
of  his  presence  and  did  not  fear  him. 

And  while  he  scoured  the  hills  for  the 
phantom  killer  a  new  commandant  had  insti- 
tuted a  search  for  Old  Mart  Woodson.  The 
first  Park  scout  was  wanted  at  the  head- 
quarters to  help  rebuild  the  old  organization, 
recently  broken  down,  to  its  former  state  of 
efficiency.  But  no  man  could  give  informa- 
tion as  to  his  whereabouts  since  leaving 
Jackson  Hole  four  months  before. 

Instead  of  being  depressed  by  the  con- 
tinued futility  of  his  search,  Woodson  was 
more  nearly  content  than  he  had  been  for 
months,  his  whole  time  absorbed  in  unravel- 
ing a  hard  trail.  The  hunt  had  been  on  for 
three  weeks,  when,  on  the  morning  after  a 
two-inch  snowfall  during  the  night,  the 
ravens  led  him  to  the  carcass  of  a  bull  elk 
in  the  heavy  timber.  The  body  of  the 
animal  had  not  yet  stiffened.  It  had  been 
killed  less  than  two  hours  past. 

Almost  unconsciously  Old  Mart  turned 
his  eyes  aloft  as  if  to  search  for  some  sign 
of  the  slayer,  as  if  indeed  he  had  traveled 
overhead  from  tree  to  tree  after  the  fashion 
of  some  great  ape;  for  the  snow  lay  undis- 
turbed. The  bull  had  apparently  stumbled 
about  in  this  spot  for  a  few  seconds  before 
he  fell  and  then  struggled  slightly  in  his 

177 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD   WEST 

death  throes.  There  had  been  two  bulls 
together,  or  at  least  traveling  the  same 
general  route,  for  the  trail  of  the  second 
animal  ran  parallel  to  that  of  the  one  that 
lay  here  dead,  occasionally  crossing  it.  This 
second  trail  left  the  spot  and  Woodson 
wondered  why  the  poacher  had  not  shot 
both  bulls.  Perhaps  the  one  had  been  ahead, 
out  of  sight  of  the  man  when  he  fired.  Per- 
haps, too,  the  killer  had  followed  and  shot 
down  the  other  animal  farther  on.  Woodson 
mounted  Teton  and  took  up  the  tracks  of  the 
second  bull.  As  he  did  so  a  wild  theory, 
the  first  he  had  formed  while  on  the  case, 
flashed  across  his  mind.  Teton  pricked  his 
ears  alertly  and  dropped  his  muzzle  to  the 
trail.  He  snorted  explosively  and  sent  a 
shower  of  snow  from  the  spot. 

'You  know  there  Js  something  queer  going 
on,  Teton,"  Woodson  asserted.  "I  wish  you 
could  tell  me  what  made  you  blow  off  like 
that.  Do  you  suppose  that  a  man  could  break 
a  bull  elk  in  to  ride?" 

He  examined  the  tracks  at  length  as  he 
leaned  from  the  saddle,  then  dismounted 
and  knelt  in  the  snow.  There  were  hoof- 
prints  of  the  hind  feet  where  the  animal 
stepped  each  time  in  the  track  of  the  fore- 
foot and  blotted  it  out,  the  little,  lifting, 
forward  cuff  on  the  surface  of  the  snow,  the 

178 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

stride  spaced  just  right  for  a  bull  traveling 
at  a  leisurely  walk.  Woodson  swung  to  the 
saddle  and  followed  the  rail. 

"No,  Teton,  he  's  not  straddling  a  saddle- 
broke  bull  elk,"  he  said.  "But  we  've  got 
him  now." 

After  a  half  mile  he  pulled  up  the  horse  and 
stared. 

"Look  at  that,  now,  Teton,"  he  urged. 
"If  that  don't  beat  a  bull  elk  at  his  own 
game  then  I  miss  my  guess.  An  elk  can 
travel  down-timber  at  top  speed  but  I  never 
see  one  do  it  just  like  that." 

The  elk  had  made  a  clean  side  step  of  at 
least  six  feet  to  the  right,  clearing  the  top 
of  a  down-log  that  lay  four  feet  high,  landing 
apparently  on  one  hind  foot.  After  this 
performance  he  had  proceeded  at  a  leisurely 
pace  as  before. 

The  sun  had  flared  forth  and  the  soft  snow 
was  already  disappearing  from  the  open  spots. 
Woodson  tied  Teton  in  the  timber  and  pro- 
ceeded on  foot.  Droves  of  elk  had  crossed 
the  trail  of  the  one  he  followed  and  at  times  their 
course  was  the  same.  Very  carefully  he  worked 
out  one  print  at  a  time  in  the  snow  or  mud. 

Just  at  dusk  a  man  knelt  over  a  tiny  fire 
before  a  rude  wikiup  of  poles  and  bows  in  a 
jungle  of  down-timber.  A  voice  called  softly 
from  behind  him. 

179 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD   WEST 

."Hello,"  it  said.     "Steady." 

The  man  whirled  and  gazed  into  the  muzzle 
of  a  rifle  that  was  balanced  across  the  top  of  a 
windfall. 

"So  it 's  you,  Rice,"  Woodson  said. 

:*You  stumbled  on  me  by  accident,"  Rice 
stated  sourly.  "Without  the  devil's  own 
luck  you  would  n't  have  found  me  in  a  dozen 
years." 

"Bull  elk  don't  step  sideways  across  four- 
foot  blow-downs  and  light  on  one  foot  two 
yards  away,"  Woodson  observed.  "Now  if 
he  'd  squared  round  to  face  it  before  he 
jumped  and  landed  with  all  four  feet  bunched 
close,  why  maybe  you'd  still  be  running 
loose." 

"Well,  and  what  business  is  it  of  yours?" 
Rice  demanded.  'You  're  not  in  the  scouts 
nowadays.  You  quit.  You  've  got  no  more 
business  up  here  than  me.  You  're  trepass- 
ing  on  the  reservation  too.  Where  's  your 
authority  to  take  me  in?" 

This  truth  had  not  crossed  WToodson's 
mind  but  he  saw  it  now. 

"Fact,"  he  confessed.  "I  had  n't  thought 
of  that.  But  I  guess  it  will  be  all  right. 
Anyway,  you  're  going  along." 

"Maybe,"  said  Rice.  "But  there  could  n't 
be  any  charge  placed  against  me,  as  if  I  was 
resisting  arrest.  It  would  merely  be  one 

180 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

trespasser  leaving  the  society  of  another. 
You  're  getting  to  be  an  old  man  and  I  don't 
want  to  take  advantage  of  you ;  but  if  you 
think  you  can  travel  those  hills  alone  with  me 
for  three  or  four  days  without  my  protest- 
ing some,  why,  you  're  just  miles  wrong." 

In  all  his  life  Woodson  had  never  threatened 
a  prisoner  and  what  he  said  now  was  not  so 
much  a  threat  as  it  was  a  mere  statement  of 
simple  fact. 

"Likely  you're  correct  about  the  legality 
of  the  thing,"  he  admitted.  "And  I'm 
correct  in  surmising  that  you  're  the  lowest- 
down  critter  I  've  run  across  to  date.  God 
only  knows  how  many  elk  you  Ve  shot  down 
for  nothing  but  their  teeth.  Any  time  you 
feel  like  making  that  little  break  you  was 
remarking  about  won't  be  a  bit  too  soon  for 
me.  Because  then  I  '11  shoot  you  in  the 
back  and  chuck  you  under  a  windfall  some- 
wheres  out  of  sight.  That  would  be  the 
simplest  way  out  of  the  whole  mess  for  me. 
So  you  just  perform  anyway  that  suits  you 
best." 

"What  have  you  got  on  me  anyway?" 
Rice  inquired.  "I'm  merely  up  here  where 
I  have  n't  any  particular  business  without  a 
permit.  So  are  you." 

"I  '11  have  a  look  around  as  soon  as  I  've 
snubbed  you  to  a  tree,"  said  Woodson.  "Elk 

181 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

tushes  are  small  and  easy  cached,  but  likely 
you  was  n't  looking  for  this  visit." 

Some  four  days  thereafter  the  new  super- 
intendent, fretfully  wondering  if  the  snow 
of  the  past  two  days  would  continue  through- 
out the  third,  heard  the  laughing  voice  of 
a  trooper  just  outside. 

"Who  said  that  Old  Mart  had  winter- 
killed last  year?"  he  demanded.  "If  he  did, 
then  here  comes  his  ghost  as  natural  as  life 
and  up  to  the  old  tricks.  It 's  an  odd  bird 
he  5s  dragged  in  this  trip." 

The  officer  looked  from  the  window  and 
saw  a  strange  procession  filing  across  the 
parade  ground  toward  headquarters.  The 
leading  figure  was  a  man  mounted  on  a  pair 
of  lofty  stilts  and  carrying  a  ten-pound  lard 
bucket  in  his  hand.  An  old  fellow  followed 
close  behind  him,  leading  a  horse  packed 
with  a  scanty  camp  equipment.  The  outfit 
passed  from  his  field  of  view  and  a  moment 
later  he  heard  the  thud  of  feet  outside  as 
Woodson  stamped  to  shake  the  snow  from  his 
clothing  and  swung  his  hat  against  the 
door  jamb. 

"Old  Mart,  sir,"  a  sergeant  reported. 

"Send  him  in,  sergeant,"  the  officer  ordered. 
"And  detail  two  men  to  guard  that  fellow 
he  brought  in." 

When  Woodson  stood  before  the  superinten- 
182 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

dent  his  intended  explanation  was  forestalled. 

"So  this  is  Old  Mart,"  the  officer  greeted. 
"Glad  to  see  you  back.  Need  you  round 
here  bad.  So  you  Ve  been  working  even 
while  you  were  on  your  vacation.  By  the  way 
—  before  I  forget  it ;  full  pay  all  the  time 
you  were  gone;  new  rule  in  the  Park  about 
vacations  on  full  pay." 

It  gradually  dawned  upon  Woodson  that  a 
new  superintendent  had  been  installed  since 
he  left;  that  the  new  officer  took  it  for 
granted  that  he  had  merely  been  away  on 
leave  but  was  still  enrolled  in  the  personnel 
of  the  civilian  scouts.  This  assumption  ren- 
dered unnecessary  the  awkward  explanation 
of  his  arresting  a  man  without  authority. 
He  was  still  a  unit  in  the  force  he  had  served 
for  thirty  years. 

His  shoulders  straightened  and  he  reverted 
to  old  habit. 

"Prisoner  to  report,  sir,"  he  said. 

The  officer  nodded  and  motioned  to  a  chair. 

"Sit  down  and  tell  me  all  about  it,"  he 
instructed.  "What's  he  been  up  to  —  that 
fellow  you  brought  in  ?  " 

The  annals  of  Park  history  are  full  of  such 
reports  as  Woodson  now  recited,  —  all  brief 
and  clipped.  It  had  never  been  his  habit 
to  turn  in  voluminous  reports,  merely  the 
bare  facts  unadorned. 

183 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

"Killing  elk  for  the  teeth,"  he  stated. 
"He  's  been  at  it  for  two  years.  There  's 
the  tushes  of  fifty -odd  bulls  he  's  killed  the 
past  month  cached  in  the  bottom  of  that 
grease  pail  he  packed  in,  stored  underneath  his 
lard.  He  traveled  on  a  pair  of  stilts  built 
up  on  elk  hoofs."  Then  followed  one  of  the 
few  unessential  details  that  Old  Mart  had 
ever  thrown  in  with  a  report. 

"They  was  awkward  things  to  pack  on  a 
horse  and  I  did  n't  want  to  leave  that  evidence 
behind.  He  seemed  to  fancy  that  style  of 
locomotion  previous,  and  besides,  I  can't 
muster  up  much  sympathy  for  him  after  what 
he  's  done,  so  I  marched  him  in  on  his  own 
tools  for  fifty  miles." 


184 


XII 

WHEN  the  ice  went  out  in  the  spring  and  the 
grass  showed  green  between  the  drifts  the 
civilian  scouts  had  been  reorganized  and 
were  working  at  their  old-time  standard  of 
efficiency.  Their  numbers  were  few  but  every 
one  on  the  rolls  was  an  experienced  hillman. 

It  was  estimated  that  something  over  eight 
hundred  head  of  elk  had  been  killed  for  their 
teeth  in  the  last  year  within  the  limits  of  the 
Yellowstone;  but  in  the  past  few  months 
at  least  half  of  the  tusk-hunters  participating 
in  this  slaughter  had  been  tracked  down. 

Colonel  Harper  summoned  his  chief  scout 
for  a  conference. 

"Things  are  running  better  now,"  he  said. 
"We're  picking  up  the  most  of  them  and 
driving  the  fear  into  the  rest.  Now  since 
that 's  ironed  out  we  '11  tackle  the  next. 
How  many  elk  are  left  out  here  ?" 

"Round  ninety  thousand  head,  even  since 
the  big  loss  a  year  ago,"  Woodson  estimated. 
"Not  all  right  inside,  but  the  big  part  of 
them,  and  the  rest  within  a  few  miles  outside 
the  line." 

185 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

"Now,  how  are  we  going  to  handle  them? 
Can  you  outline  a  practical  constructive 
plan  for  keeping  those  herds  intact?" 

"Not  all  of  them.  I  used  to  think  it  could 
be  done  but  I  see  it  different  now.  But  I  can 
show  you  how  to  save  a  big  percentage  with- 
out relying  on  protection  outside  the  Park." 
'You  tell  me,"  the  officer  instructed. 
"You  outline  a  practical  plan  and  I'll  put 
the  measure  through." 

"We  '11  have  to  wait  till  along  sometime 
in  the  summer,"  Woodson  said.  "Then  I 
can  show  you  what  I  mean  and  prove  my 
point  as  we  go  along  —  if  you  '11  take  a  swing 
through  the  Park  with  me." 

"That 's  a  long  time,"  the  Colonel  objected. 
"But  we'll  wait  if  you  think  best.  In  the 
meantime  I  want  you  to  go  out  with  me  on  a 
few  short  trips  right  now.  This  is  my 
time  of  year." 

It  must  be  that  Nature,  in  sustaining 
that  intricate  balance  that  is  so  apparent 
throughout  all  her  works,  however  varied, 
has  even  diffused  the  tastes  of  men,  apportion- 
ing their  interests  so  that  none  of  her  moods 
or  her  creations  might  be  entirely  slighted. 
It  is  given  to  some  men  to  love  best  the  sea 
that  others  loathe.  Some  are  in  love  with  the 
spell  of  the  plains  while  the  hearts  of  others 
expand  to  the  lure  of  the  hills.  Some  thrill 

186 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

to  the  screech  of  the  storm  which  depresses 
those  who  are  content  only  when  the  skies 
are  fair.  There  are  those  who  love  the 
winter  months,  their  tonic  the  sting  of  frost. 
And  Colonel  Harper,  a  soldier  by  profession 
but  by  inclination  a  dabbler  in  botany,  loved 
the  spring.  On  this  first  spring  season  in 
the  Yellowstone  he  reveled  in  a  variety  of 
flowers,  unfolding  in  such  wonderful  profusion 
as  might  be  expected  only  in  the  tropics. 
Woodson  knew  them  all  and  together  they 
took  a  ten-mile  jaunt  in  search  of  possible 
new  specimens.  Toward  the  close  of  the 
day  they  sat  on  a  down-log  at  the  edge  of  the 
timber  and  looked  out  across  the  meadow. 

"Nature  didn't  overlook  one  thing  when 
she  made  the  Yellowstone,"  the  Colonel 
said.  "She  even  finished  it  off  with  a  carpet 
of  flowers  from  the  bottoms  to  the  peaks." 

In  one  day  they  had  seen  banks  upon  banks 
of  blossoms  tinged  with  every  shade  known 
to  man.  Out  above  the  timber  line,  in  every 
opening  between  the  drifts,  the  blue  of  the 
forget-me-nots  contrasted  with  the  pure  gold 
of  the  alpine  buttercup  and  the  purple  of 
clematis.  The  columbine  and  the  harebell 
lifted  shy  heads  in  the  timber;  the  crimson 
of  Indian  paint-brush  flamed  in  relief  against 
the  silvery  aspen  trunks  at  the  fringe  of  open 
parks;  jungles  of  wild  rose  in  the  sheltered 

187 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

bottoms,  and  sidehills  massed  with  golden- 
rod;  heavy-headed  clusters  of  bee  plant 
at  the  timber's  edge ;  rose  mallow  and 
shooting  star.  Dainty  fringed  gentians  lifted 
from  the  meadows  where  purple  banks  of 
lupin  and  pale  lemon  seas  of  the  mountain 
parsley  were  broken  only  by  the  splashes  of 
color  where  a  hundred  other  flowers  raised 
their  faces  to  the  sun.  The  Colonel  drank 
in  every  detail  of  the  spring  riot  unrolling 
before  his  eyes. 

"And  if  the  stockmen  have  their  way  we  '11 
soon  see  that  color  cut  off  beneath  the  grass 
roots  and  trampled  flat  into  the  ground," 
Woodson  observed.  The  Colonel  roused  from 
his  abstraction  with  a  start. 

"How  's  that?"  he  queried. 

"For  the  last  ten  years  stockmen  have  been 
bringing  every  pressure  to  bear  to  have  the 
Park  thrown  open  for  cows  and  sheep," 
Woodson  stated.  "I  'd  hate  to  see  that 
measure  pass." 

"Yes,"  Harper  agreed.  "I  'd  rather  dis- 
like that  myself ;  but  it  is  n't  likely  they  '11 
let  them  in." 

"Isn't  it?"  Woodson  asked.  "They've 
let  them  graze  other  places.  As  near  as  I 
can  find  out  this  is  about  the  only  National 
Park  in  the  United  States  that  is  n't  open  to 
grazing  now.  It  breaks  a  sheepman's  heart 

188 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

to  go  through  here  and  see  this  feed.  It 
spoils  a  cowman's  trip.  There  's  no  beauty 
here  for  them  without  a  band  of  woollies 
feeding  on  every  sidehill  or  a  bunch  of  range 
cows  bedded  in  every  meadow  and  open  park. 
They  '11  never  rest  till  they  get  across  the  line." 

" Maybe,"  the  officer  admitted.  "It's  a 
question  of  development  —  of  added  pro- 
duction. We  have  to  look  at  that  side  too. 
They  think  that  the  grass  is  theirs  to  graze 
as  they  see  fit  —  free  grass,  more  cows ;  that 's 
their  argument.  Of  course,  if  you  look  at 
it  like  that  — 

"Why,  then,  you've  got  to  look  at  it 
like  this,"  Woodson  said.  "That  with  free 
trees  there  's  more  lumber.  If  a  sheepman 
can  run  his  sheep  on  the  grass  in  here  that 
belongs  to  a  hundred  million  souls,  then 
why  can't  some  lumberman  throw  a  logging 
crew  in  here  and  start  lumbering  in  the  Park  ? 
Or  a  man  that  wants  to  trap  come  here  and 
make  a  catch  of  mink  and  fox  ?  Or  hunt  for 
elk  and  bear?  Why  can't  some  equally  free 
citizen  stake  out  his  claim  on  Lewis  Lake  and 
fence  if  off  for  his  private  fishing  pond?" 

"But  their  point  is  that  the  best  grass 
country  in  the  hills  is  being  withheld  from 
them."  Harper  pointed  out.  "And  it  cer- 
tainly is  a  better  feed  country  here  than  that 
outside." 

189 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

"Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  to  wonder  why 
the  grass  grows  here  and  there  's  no  grass 
outside?"  the  old  scout  inquired.  "Does  it 
strike  you  as  queer  that  Nature  covered  the 
hills  with  grass  right  up  to  an  imaginary 
line  that  constitutes  the  boundary  of  the 
Park  —  while  all  outside  on  the  north  and 
west  there 's  nothing  much  but  bare  dirt 
and  gravel  left  ?  " 

"I  know  it 's  a  fact,  but  I  don't  know 
why,"  the  officer  confessed.  "Suppose  you 
tell  me." 

"I  've  seen  these  whole  hills  covered  with 
feed,"  Woodson  said.  "It  was  all  grass 
country  then;  lots  of  it  far  better  than  the 
Park  itself  is  to-day.  The  stockmen  would  n't 
put  just  enough  stuff  on  the  range  to  stock 
it  to  capacity.  Each  one  had  to  throw  out 
a  bunch  to  try  and  feed  off  a  certain  locality 
and  beat  his  neighbors  to  it.  You  never 
saw  a  cow  country  where  range  quarrels 
were  n't  the  topic  of  the  times.  Every  man 
crowds  the  range  with  every  last  hoof  he  can 
shove  onto  it.  Down  in  the  low  country, 
where  it 's  more  or  less  solid  grass  land,  the 
range  stood  overstocking  after  a  fashion. 
Up  here  in  the  hills  it 's  different  again. 
There  's  steep  slopes,  gravel  and  looser  soil, 
and  the  grass  grows  scattering  in  place  of 
heavy  sod  land.  The  roots  come  out  along 

190 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

with  the  tops  when  it's  grubbed  too  close. 
The  hoofs  churn  up  the  gravel  on  the  slopes. 
In  my  day  I  've  seen  five  million  acres  of 
hills  absolutely  ruined  by  overstocking  — 
just  because  they  threw  out  a  few  head  more 
stuff  in  every  locality  than  there  was  grass  to 
feed." 

"It  surely  can't  be  that  all  that  bare  country 
outside  once  had  grass  the  same  as  we  have 
in  here,"  the  officer  dissented. 

"Better,"  Woodson  insisted.  "The  Park 
is  n't  a  real  grass  country  —  only  by  com- 
parison. I  'm  telling  you  just  what  I  've 
seen  myself.  There  's  hills  that  you  look  at 
now,  with  hardly  enough  soil  to  hold  the 
gravel  on  the  slopes ;  and  you  say,  *  There 
never  was  any  grass  grew  there.  There  's 
not  even  soil  for  a  roothold.'  But  grass  did 
grow  there.  I  saw  it;  on  every  hill  that 
looks  bleak  and  barren  to  you  now.  They 
threw  out  too  many  head  of  stock  and  they 
had  to  grub  for  the  last  spear  of  grass,  right 
down  into  the  ground,  and  loosened  the 
roots.  There  was  nothing  to  hold  down  the 
thin  surface  soil.  The  wind  whittled  it  off 
and  the  gravel  started  to  slide.  That 's  why 
there  's  no  grass  outside.  And  you  can  keep 
every  hoof  of  stock  off  lots  of  it  now  and  it  '11 
take  fifteen  years  to  reseed  itself  and  get  back 
to  where  it  was  ten  years  ago." 

191 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

"Still,  while  that  may  be  true,  the  stockmen 
in  the  hills  are  hard-pressed,"  the  Colonel  said. 
"They  suffer  losses  every  year.  They 
actually  do  need  more  range." 

"What  they  actually  need,"  Woodson  stub- 
bornly contested,  "is  less  cows  for  what  range 
they  've  got,  and  more  winter  feed.  It 's 
coming  to  that.  They  suffer  losses  from 
overstocking  what  range  they  have  left. 
Then  they  go  into  the  winter  with  half 
enough  feed  and  suffer  a  percentage  of  winter- 
kills. They  have  to  throw  out  too  early  in 
the  spring  —  and  the  larkspur  gets  some  cows. 
Then  they  send  out  a  cry  that  range  is  being 
held  back  from  them  and  causing  them  loss. 
People  who  live  in  cities  and  way  off  from 
here  have  no  way  to  know  the  facts.  They 
think  it 's  true.  In  a  hill  country  like  this, 
where  it 's  eight  months  winter,  what  they  do 
need  is  not  more  range  for  the  four  open 
months  but  twice  as  much  hay  for  the  other 
eight." 

"But  they  claim  that  this  grass  is  going 
to  waste,"  Harper  explained.  "That 's  their 
main  hold.  They  sent  a  delegation  in  here 
and  took  officials  through  to  point  out  that  the 
bottoms  are  n't  touched  by  the  game.  They 
rode  for  miles  in  the  open  meadow  without 
seeing  a  hundred  head  of  elk,  all  told,  showing 
that  the  grass  in  the  bottoms  was  going  to 

192 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

waste  when  it  might  be  turned  into  mutton 
and  beef." 

"I  know,"  Woodson  said  wearily.  "I 
know.  And  a  while  back  they  did  the  same 
thing  with  officials  outside,  down  in  the 
Teton  Game  Preserve  toward  Jackson  Hole. 
Buffalo  Fork  and  Pacific  Creek  were  closed 
to  grazing  —  that  much  grass  set  aside  for  the 
elk.  The  stock  interests  invited  officials  in 
to  pass  on  the  case.  They  piloted  them 
through  the  meadows  in  the  middle  of  the 
day.  Most  of  the  elk  were  back  in  the  peaks 
for  the  summer.  What  few  were  down  had 
naturally  bedded  in  the  timber  during  the 
heat  of  the  day.  They  did  n't  see  any  elk. 
Those  men  knew  the  officials  could  n't  read 
signs  —  would  n't  know  the  tracks  of  a  thou- 
sand elk  from  the  trail  of  a  lone  coyote.  It 
was  n't  natural  that  they  should.  Their 
training  has  run  to  other  things.  They  left 
fully  satisfied  that  that  grass  was  n't  used  by 
the  elk.  There  was  a  general  laugh  after  the 
delegation  was  out  of  sight.  Smooth  work ! 
That 's  a  favorite  joke  in  the  Hole  to-day ; 
about  how  they  bunked  the  officials  into 
believing  there  were  no  elk  on  Pacific  and 
Buffalo  Fork.  They  did  the  same  thing  out 
in  Idaho ;  and  worse  in  Montana.  That 's 
why  the  grass  grows  knee-deep  inside  the 
Park  on  Slough  and  Hell-roaring  creeks  and 

193 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

is  bare  as  a  table  outside,  cut  off  clear  under 
the  roots  by  those  sharp  little  cutting  hoofs 
where  the  Montana  sheepmen  threw  out 
just  a  few  too  many  bands  of  sheep  for  what 
grass  there  was.  How  can  the  officials  that 
come  through  here  get  the  truth  ?  It 's 
easy  to  make  fallacies  stand  out  like  facts. 
If  they  Jd  bring  them  here  in  late  fall  — 
which  they  never  will  —  they  'd  see  that  that 
grass  in  the  bottoms  is  used  by  the  elk. 
They  come  down  a  stage  at  a  time  as  the 
snow  crowds  them  out  of  the  peaks.  That 
bottom  feed  keeps  them  for  two  months  — 
sometimes  three.  Feed  that  out  and  they  '11 
starve.  But  the  people  don't  know.  They 
hear  only  one  side.  One  day  they  '11  let 
sheep  and  cows  come  in  here.  Then  thou- 
sands of  part  owners  who  summer  up  here 
every  year  will  have  to  drive  steers  off  every 
bend  of  every  trail  instead  of  seeing  elk  and 
deer.  At  night,  instead  of  the  tang  of  pine 
and  balsam,  they  '11  inhale  the  smell  of 
sheep.  Instead  of  the  night  sounds  of  the 
hills  they  '11  listen  to  the  blat  of  ten  thou- 
sand woollies  on  the  bed  ground.  There  "11 
be  mud  wallows  where  there  's  meadows  now 
and  gravel  where  there  's  grass.  A  few  men 
will  have  made  a  profit  and  a  hundred  million 
easy-going,  good-natured  folks  will  have  been 
bunked  to  the  devil's  taste." 

194 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

The  Colonel  smiled  at  the   old  hillman's 
positiveness. 

"I  take  it  you  don't  care  much  for  cows 
and  sheep,"  he  said. 

"You  take  it  wrong,"  Woodson  assured  him. 
"I  'm  a  lover  of  stock  myself.  And  I  don't 
blame  the  stockmen  for  a  second.  They  're 
mostly  broad-gauge  men.  The  reason  they  're 
successful  in  their  line  is  because  their  stock 
comes  first  with  them.  This  country  would 
actually  be  more  beautiful  to  them  with  a 
bunch  of  cows  or  sheep  —  according  to  their 
respective  occupations  —  feeding  in  sight  of 
them  at  every  turn.  They  're  sincere  in 
that.  I  'd  be  the  last  to  censure  the  stock- 
men themselves  if  they  get  in  here.  I  'd 
keep  on  doing  the  best  I  could,  as  I  always 
have,  and  help  'em  apportion  the  range.  No, 
I  would  n't  blame  them  for  doing  what 's 
next  their  hearts  —  I  'd  blame  all  those  other 
millions  for  not  showing  an  equal  interest 
in  what  is  next  to  theirs  and  keeping  out  the 
stock  if  they  don't  want  it  in."  His  former 
positive  manner  had  departed.  "Sometimes 
I  'm  sorry  I  did  n't  fall  on  the  stockmen's 
side  to  start,"  he  said  reflectively.  "At! 
least  I  'd  be  associated  with  folks  that  know 
what  they  want  and  try  to  get  it.  The  side 
I've  been  working  for  —  all  the  millions' 
of  joint  owners  of  this  Park  —  have  n't  figured 

195 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

out  just  what  they  do  want  and  don't  care 
much  whether  or  not  they  get  it." 

This  impartiality  surprised  the  Colonel  and 
he  sensed  that  Woodson  had  spent  a  lifetime 
playing  his  own  hand  according  to  his  own 
ideas,  and  with  but  little  encouragement. 

"But  the  bulk  of  the  people  are  veering 
to  your  side,"  he  said.  "Most  of  them  are 
beginning  to  view  things  the  way  you  have 
seen  them  all  along.  Every  year  there  is  an 
increasing  popular  demand  to  set  aside  Na- 
tional Parks.  On  all  sides  you  hear  of  con- 
servation of  game  —  conservation  of  trees. 
Ten  years  ago  you  never  glanced  at  a  news- 
paper without  seeing  a  column  devoted  to 
the  exploitation  of  some  natural  resources. 
Now  you  can't  find  one  without  some  ref- 
erence to  conservation.  It 's  been  a  long 
time  coming  but  it 's  here  and  growing 
stronger  every  day.  You  '11  come  into  your 
own  at  last." 

Harper  turned  over  in  his  mind  the  old 
scout's  semi-defense  of  the  stockmen  who 
would  graze  the  Park,  even  while  he  opposed 
their  purpose.  At  least  he  was  sufficiently 
broad-minded  to  commend  their  sincerity, 
even  though  their  ideas  were  the  opposite 
of  his  own. 

"But  you  say  they  are  ruining  their  range," 
he  said,  reverting  to  that  topic.  "Don't 

196 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

you  blame  them  for  that  shortsightedness  ? " 
"Not  overmuch,"  Woodson  stated.  "It 
is  n't  given  to  many  folks  to  look  ahead 
further  than  to-morrow  morning  after  break- 
fast at  the  most.  In  fact,  lots  of  'em  don't 
see  clear  through  one  whole  day  till  after  it 's 
gone  by.  Why  censure  folks  for  a  common 
failing?  Others  have  done  the  same  before 
them.  The  fur  trade  killed  its  own  business 
by  overtrapping ;  the  hide-hunters  ended 
theirs  by  overshooting.  The  lumber  trade 
sailed  through  their  golden  day  of  prosperity 
and  overplayed  their  hand  by  wasteful  cutting. 
The  market  hunters  worked  dead  against  their 
own  best  interests  by  shooting  a  few  too  many 
pigeons  and  chickens,  ducks  and  geese  and 
so  on  every  year.  So  why  should  we  settle 
particularly  on  the  stockmen  for  overcrowd- 
ing what  range  they  have  ?  It 's  simple 
repetition  of  a  purely  American  trait." 

He  waved  a  hand  toward  the  riot  of  flowers 
before  them  in  the  meadow.  "Going  back 
to  flowers,  where  we  started,"  he  said. 
"There  's  several  little  plants  that  will  likely 
play  an  important  role  all  through  these 
hills  within  the  next  few  years.  It 's  been 
my  observation  that  Nature  can't  be  over- 
worked or  crowded  to  the  wall  without 
fighting  back.  Men  know  that  they  can't 
overtax  themselves  without  feeling  the  effects 

197 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

of  it  and  breaking  down  physically.  They 
realize  that  they  can't  drag  two  hours  a  day 
of  extra  work  out  of  a  good  horse  without 
killing  the  animal  before  its  time.  That 's 
because  they  have  object  lessons  under  their 
very  eyes  to  prove  it.  But  their  vision 
does  n't  extend  far  enough  to  apply  that 
same  rule  to  all  outdoors  —  because  it  ?s  too 
big  and  too  spread  out  for  them  to  read. 
Already  the  stockmen  are  beginning  to  curse 
the  larkspur,  the  camas  and  the  loco  and  to 
wonder  what  their  use  is  here  on  earth.  For 
a  while  I  wondered  too  —  but  finally  I  got  it. 
Likely  there  's  some  purpose  for  everything 
if  you  study  it  close  enough.  A  man  can't 
spend  a  life  in  the  open  and  believe  that 
Nature  went  at  things  blind  and  scattered 
stuff  haphazard.  There  's  always  the  balance 
to  be  struck.  You  can  figure  the  purpose 
of  the  killers  among  the  animal  tribes  —  to 
hold  down  the  numbers  of  the  beasts  they 
kill  for  feed;  the  weaknesses  of  the  victims 
so  that  the  meat-eaters  are  assured  of  sufficient 
food  supply;  the  contradictory  limitations 
you  find  handicapping  different  killers  so 
that  they  can't  kill  too  much.  Balance ! 
And  the  same  thing  holds  true  of  the  outdoors 
as  a  whole.  That  must  be  the  reason  for  the 
presence  of  these  three  little  poison  plants. 
When  the  grazing  tribes  grew  so  plentiful 

198 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

as  to  overfeed  a  certain  range  and  started 
to  kill  off  the  grass  these  weeds  grew  up  to 
mow  them  down  to  decent  numbers ;  dif- 
ferent plants  that  were  death  to  certain 
kinds  and  did  n't  hurt  the  rest,  so  that  all 
of  any  one  animal  would  n't  be  exterminated. 
Balance  and  proportion,  even  in  the  killing. 
All  through  these  hills  where  the  range  is 
overstocked  you  find  Nature  getting  ready  to 
fight  back.  The  loco  kills  a  horse  but  does  n't 
seem  to  affect  cows  or  sheep.  A  horse  seems 
immune  to  larkspur  but  for  cow  critters  it 's 
sure  death ;  and  the  camas  kills  the  sheep. 
A  few  more  years  of  overgrazing  and  these 
hills  will  be  shot  so  full  of  poison  that  a  man 
will  be  risking  his  whole  herd  to  turn  them 
out.  That 's  my  own  little  personal  solution 
about  the  poison  flowers.  Likely  scientists 
will  disagree  with  me.  They  're  trying  out 
ways  now  of  fighting  to  kill  out  the  poison, 
instead  of  pulling  off  part  of  the  stock  and 
letting  the  grass  regrow  and  crowd  the  poison 
out,  according  to  Nature's  simple  scheme 
of  things  that  men  refuse  to  recognize." 

In  a  way  the  Colonel  and  Old  Mart  were 
kindred  souls  and  during  their  short  excur- 
sions they  exchanged  ideas  that  either  would 
have  hesitated  to  express  to  other  men. 
Old  Mart  was  a  man  hunter,  and  hard  citizens 
who  feared  little  here  on  earth  confessed 

199 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

that  he  was  harder  than  themselves.  Harper 
was  a  soldier,  a  rigid  disciplinarian.  Yet 
each  recognized  in  the  other  that  inner  self 
deep  within  that  bowed  to  the  beautiful 
in  Nature,  a  soft  spot  of  which  no  exterior 
hint  was  evident.  In  midsummer  they  started 
off  together,  just  the  two  of  them,  unaccom- 
panied by  the  retinue  that  had  characterized 
the  travels  of  many  former  commandants. 

They  rode  up  the  Tower  Falls  road  and  as 
they  drew  abreast  of  Yancy  Meadows  Wood- 
son  halted  and  waved  an  arm  out  across  the 
flats. 

"That 's  part  of  what  I  aimed  to  show 
you,"  he  informed  his  companion.  The 
meadows  were  rank  with  natural  hay  ready 
to  be  cut.  "That's  just  a  speck;  but  we 
could  put  up  somewhere  round  a  hundred 
tons  of  hay  with  only  a  rake  and  a  mowing 
machine,  the  work  of  a  few  men  and  teams 
for  a  week." 

"I  'm  beginning  to  see,"  Harper  nodded. 

"And  only  just  beginning,"  Woodson  said. 
"Before  we  're  through  this  tour  I  '11  show  you 
square  miles  of  that." 

They  turned  aside  up  Slough  Creek,  the 
bottoms  widening  just  within  the  low  hills 
that  flanked  its  mouth.  Grass  country  un- 
rolled before  them  in  successive  meadows. 

"We  could  put  up  better  than  two  thousand 
200 


THE  PASSING   OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

tons  on  Slough  Creek  alone,"  Woodson  stated. 
"Back  here  out  of  sight  where  not  fifty 
tourists  have  ever  been  since  time  began. 
In  dry  years  we  might  have  to  put  in  a  small 
ditch  system  to  water  the  hay.  The  land 
lays  just  right  and  the  ditch  system  would  n't 
cost  to  exceed  two  thousand  dollars,  a  dollar 
a  ton  on  the  initial  cut.  You  can  drive 
nearly  the  whole  length  of  it  now.  I  '11 
guarantee  to  build  all  the  road  that 's  neces- 
sary to  get  out  the  hay  at  a  cost  of  three 
hundred  dollars.  In  wet  years  we  would  n't 
even  have  to  irrigate;  that  would  be  two 
years  out  of  three." 

All  up  the  bottoms  of  the  Lamar  he  pointed 
out  bottom  land  covered  with  heavy  stands  of 
native  grass. 

"There  's  wild  timothy,  bunch  grass,  wild 
oats,  slough  grass  and  redtop  scattered  all 
through  the  Park,"  he  said.  "And  lots  of 
others.  All  we  've  got  to  do  is  to  cut  the 
hay." 

"We'll  cut  it,"  the  Colonel  asserted. 
"Leave  that  to  me." 

They  crossed  over  the  divide  and  down  the 
Pelican  and  found  more  meadows ;  round  to 
the  west  of  Turbid  Lake  —  more  grass ;  still 
more  at  Squaw  Lake.  They  followed  the 
road  round  Lake  Yellowstone  and  turned  off 
below  the  Thumb.  For  a  day  they  fought 

201 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

dense  tangles  of  down-timber  and  came  out 
at  last  into  unsuspected  meadows  hemmed 
in  by  heavy  forests. 

"There  's  only  a  scattering  of  folks  have 
ever  seen  this  spot,"  said  Woodson.  "You 
have  to  cross  through  miles  of  jungle  and 
down-stuff  to  get  in  here.  There  's  meadows 
here  that  will  cut  five  thousand  tons  of  the 
best  kind  of  hay." 

"But  it  would  be  a  big  undertaking  to  build 
a  road  in  here  —  big  expense,"  Harper  ob- 
jected. "But  the  hay  is  certainly  here." 

Woodson  pointed  to  a  sheen  of  water  show- 
ing through  a  fringe  of  trees. 

"See  that?"  he  asked.  "Well,  that 's  a 
prong  of  the  South  Arm  of  Lake  Yellowstone. 
We  could  take  the  launch  and  run  right  up 
within  three  hundred  yards  of  the  start  of 
these  meadows,  leave  the  hay  tools  crated 
and  set  them  up  here  on  the  ground.  The 
transportation  for  all  the  equipment  we  'd 
need  here,  after  it 's  once  laid  down  at  Gar- 
diner, would  n't  cost  to  exceed  a  hundred 
dollars ;  freight  it  to  the  Lake  Landing  by 
team  and  set  it  down  here  with  the  launch 
in  one  day." 

The  following  day  they  moved  east  and 
skirted  the  end  of  the  southeast  arm  of  the 
lake,  riding  through  miles  of  natural  meadow, 
the  ripening  grass  waving  in  ripples  before 

202 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

the  breeze.  All  the  way  up  the  broad  bot- 
toms of  the  Yellowstone  clear  to  the  con- 
fluence with  the  Thorofare  they  traversed 
great  stretches  of  feed  country  where  the 
horses  waded  through  grass  to  their  knees. 
They  camped  the  second  night  on  the  shores 
of  Bridger  Lake.  As  they  sat  before  their 
fire  the  Colonel  raised  a  question  that  had 
troubled  him. 

"There 's  only  one  drawback  to  this 
scheme,"  he  said.  "The  snow  lays  so  deep 
over  most  of  the  Park  that  the  elk  never  stay 
through  the  winter  in  the  greater  part  of  it." 

"Up  here  on  the  head  of  the  Yellowstone 
it  lays  maybe  six  inches  deeper  on  an  average 
than  it  does  in  Jackson  Hole,"  Woodson 
admitted.  "Down  on  the  Lamar  and  round 
the  mouth  of  Slough  and  Hell-roaring  creeks, 
Yancey  Meadows  and  along  the  river  clear  to 
Gardiner,  it  will  average  a  foot  less.  I  Ve 
seen  elk  winter  in  the  Hole  on  four  feet  of 
packed  snow  and  make  it  in  good  shape  on 
hay.  Snow  does  n't  bother  them ;  it'  s  merely 
the  question  of  feed.  We  would  n't  work 
this  country  up  here  till  after  we  'd  cut  over 
Lamar  and  Slough  Creek  first  and  tried  it  for 
a  season.  But  if  it  will  work  down  Jackson 
way  it  will  work  up  here.  That 's  sure." 

"But  for  years  there 's  been  a  regular 
migration  of  the  elk  out  of  the  Park,"  Harper 

203 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

objected.  "Won't  old  habit  be  so  strong 
that  they  '11  pull  down  out  of  here  just  the 
same  ?  " 

"I  've  seen  all  the  wild  things  change  their 
ways  of  living,"  Woodson  said.  "In  my  day 
I  've  seen  the  coyotes  quit  the  prairies  and 
overrun  the  hills.  A  dozen  years  ago  a  herd 
of  antelope  could  n't  be  forced  to  enter  a 
bunch  of  trees.  Hide-hunters  knew  that 
trait  and  made  use  of  it.  Some  of  them  would 
crowd  a  big  drove  of  pronghorns  toward  a 
strip  of  timber.  They  'd  turn  and  skirt  it 
every  time  and  run  the  gantlet  of  men 
stationed  there  in  preference  to  cutting 
through  among  the  trees.  Five  years  later 
men  were  hunting  antelope  in  the  cedars  or 
even  in  jack-pine  country,  the  same  as  they  'd 
hunt  for  deer.  They  'd  changed  their  ways. 
Right  now  the  elk  are  changing  theirs.  All 
down  the  Snake  they  stop  and  hang  round 
every  ranch  where  there 's  a  hay-stack. 
They  '11  stop  round  ours  just  the  same.  I  '11 
stake  my  life  on  it.  It 's  already  been  proved 
successful.  Down  in  the  Hole  the  Govern- 
ment has  started  a  big  hay  ranch  for  a  winter 
feed-ground.  They  winter-feed  elk  there  the 
same  as  you  'd  feed  domestic  stock.  It 's 
the  plan  to  increase  the  layout  till  they  're 
taking  care  of  them  all  and  relieve  the  ranchers 
of  sleeping  every  winter  in  their  stacks.  We 

204 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

know  we  can  do  the  same  thing  down  Gardiner 
way  and  no  reason  why  we  can't  later  extend 
up  here.  We  can  salt  them  and  hold  them 
any  place  there  's  feed.  There  's  the  plan. 
Now  the  rest  is  up  to  you." 

"Never  fear,"  Harper  confidently  assured 
him.  "I  '11  put  it  through.  More  and  more 
now  the  people  are  lining  up  behind  practical 
conservation  plans.  There  won't  be  any 
trouble  about  that." 

"We  can't  hold  them  all  at  first,"  Woodson 
said.  "Wouldn't  want  to  if  we  could,  for 
we  would  n't  have  the  feed.  But  we  can 
start  Slough  Creek  and  Lamar  and  then  put 
in  more  feed  lots  at  other  points.  There  's 
enough  hay  could  be  cut  on  Falls  River 
Meadows  and  the  Bechler  to  winter  all  the 
elk  that  summer  on  the  Pitchstone  and  the 
Madison  Plateau.  But  we  '11  have  to  work 
on  that  point  right  soon  if  we  do  any  good. 
A  few  more  years  of  wintering  out  in  Idaho 
and  the  western  herds  are  gone.  If  we  start 
now  we  can  hold  twenty  to  thirty  thousand 
head  of  elk  right  here  in  the  Park  and  the 
increase  will  overflow  and  help  stock  the 
hills  outside." 

"It's  as  good  as  done,"  Harper  stated. 
"We'll  be  putting  up  ten  thousand  tons  of 
hay  to  start  it  off  next  year." 

"I  hope  so,"  Woodson  said.  "I  hope  so 
205 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

for  a  fact.  Everything  I  've  planned  and 
counted  on  has  seemed  to  play  out  to  nothing 
in  the  end.  But  folks  are  changing,  like  you 
say,  and  some  way  I  feel  that  this  is  going  to 
work  out  all  right." 

"Just  as  sure  as  fate,"  Harper  concurred. 
"It 's  bound  to  come.  You  've  worked  hard 
at  a  thankless  job,  Mart.  But  you  're  going 
to  win  out  in  the  end." 


206 


XIII 

IT  is  said  that  the  streets  of  a  famous  city 
are  laid  out  along  the  cow  paths  that  threaded 
the  pastures  adjacent  to  the  site  of  its  infancy. 
It  is  certain  that  the  highways  of  the  West 
follow  the  game  trails  of  yesterday.  Wood- 
son  had  seen  the  bull  teams  follow  the  trails 
made  by  the  buffalo,  then  the  steel  rails 
crowding  close  upon  the  heels  of  the  prairie 
schooner  and  the  oxbow.  He  had  seen 
marauding  war  parties  of  red  men  traveling 
the  trails  laid  out  through  the  mountain 
passes  by  the  hoofs  of  elk  and  deer,  later 
traversed  by  the  pack  trains  of  the  white 
invaders  and  now  by  the  automobile  that 
toured  the  highways  hewed  out  along  the 
onetime  arteries  of  game  migration  routes. 
WThere  a  few  years  past  he  had  listened  to 
the  bugling  of  a  thousand  lovelorn  bulls  his 
ears  were  now  assailed  by  the  shriek  of  a 
thousand  sirens  as  autoists  rounded  the  sharp 
curves  of  the  mountain  grades.  It  was  but 
another  of  the  transitions  he  had  witnessed; 
the  four-horse  coach  had  slipped  into  the  days 
pf  "once  there  was"  and  the  swifter  automo- 

207 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

bile  had  crowded  out  one  more  link  with  a  day 
that  had  served  its  usefulness  and  passed. 
The  soldiers  had  gone  with  the  stagecoach, 
and  civilian  superintendents  once  more  held 
sway  in  the  Park.  Those  who  guarded  the 
reservation  were  no  longer  scouts  but  were 
now  known  as  rangers. 

Old  Mart  sprawled  on  a  point  that  over- 
looked a  stretch  of  the  Canyon  road.  Teton 
had  grazed  to  repletion  and  stood  with 
drooping  head.  The  horse  that  had  carried 
his  master  on  so  many  hard  trails  was  old. 
Woodson  had  always  saved  his  mount  where- 
ever  possible  and  had  seldom  overtaxed  his 
strength,  so  Teton's  span  of  life  had  been 
longer  than  that  of  the  average  mountain 
horse.  The  mellow  summer  sun  had  dis- 
sipated the  early  morning  chill  of  the  high 
country.  A  picket-pin  gopher  sat  upright 
in  the  grass  before  a  tiny  heap  of  fresh  earth 
which  he  had  excavated.  His  near  relative, 
the  chipmunk,  had  whisked  swiftly  round  the 
roots  of  an  ancient  stump,  then  mounted  it 
and  trilled  defiantly.  A  huge  fat  marmot 
gathered  a  mouthful  of  grass  and  carried  it  to 
her  family  in  the  depths  of  a  bowlder  heap 
while  her  mate  sunned  himself  on  the  topmost 
rock.  An  osprey  screamed  as  he  wheeled 
over  the  river,  then  made  his  spectacular 
plunge  and  rose  on  high  with  a  fish  gripped 

208 


The  great  brown  bear  moved  into  the  road  and  reared 
to  his  full  height.     Page  209. 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

in  his  talons.  Woodson  watched  him  carry 
it  to  the  mate  who  mothered  three  young 
fish-eagles  in  a  big  nest  built  on  the  top  of  a 
shattered  snag. 

Down  below,  from  the  edge  of  a  strip  of 
timber,  a  huge  brown  bear  peered  up  the 
ribbon  of  the  road  that  wound  along  the  river. 
Long  years  ago  he  had  been  a  tiny  cub  in  a 
rim-rocked  pocket.  A  man  had  called  him 
Wakinoo,  the  brown  bear,  and  had  made 
him  rise  on  his  hind  feet  and  beg  whenever 
he  approached  the  little  cabin  in  search  of 
food.  Later  he  had  found  his  accomplish- 
ment of  great  benefit  round  the  hotels  and 
tourist  camps.  Wakinoo  was  hungry.  The 
air  throbbed  to  the  purr  of  an  auto  coming 
round  a  bend.  The  great  brown  bear  moved 
into  the  road  and  reared  to  his  full  height. 
An  astonished  driver  clamped  down  on  the 
brakes  and  brought  the  car  to  a  stop.  The 
huge  beast  waddled  to  the  side  and  rested 
his  forepaws  on  the  door,  his  little  eyes  search- 
ing the  faces  of  the  occupants  while  he  sniffed 
in  eager  anticipation. 

"I  'd  heard  of  this,"  said  the  driver;  "but 
thought  I  was  being  strung.  A  beggar  bear, 
as  sure  as  I  'm  a  white  man." 

Other  cars  pulled  in  behind  the  first  and  the 
brown  highwayman  feasted  on  bits  of  food 
produced  from  the  lunch  boxes  of  the  tourists. 

209 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD   WEST 

Far  away  on  the  Snake  River  road  another 
string  of  autos  was  being  similarly  held  up 
by  Wakinee,  the  black  bear.  Between  the 
Geyser  Basin  and  the  Thumb  a  brown  yearling 
and  a  black  two-year-old  had  joined  forces 
and  stood  on  their  hind  feet  in  the  edge  of  the 
road  to  stop  the  early  morning  travelers. 
All  over  the  Park  this  was  going  on.  Tourists 
had  heard  that  of  late  years  bears  had  come 
from  the  forests  to  beg  for  food  along  the 
roads.  None  would  believe  till  he  had  wit- 
nessed the  strange  thing  himself;  but  before 
the  summer  ended  some  fifty  thousand 
travelers  were  ready  to  testify  that  a  race 
of  beggar  bears  were  plying  their  trade  in  the 
Yellowstone. 

Woodson  watched  Wakinoo  entertaining 
the  occupants  of  a  dozen  cars  on  the  road 
below  him.  Each  year  the  people  took  a 
keener  interest  in  the  wild  life  of  the  Park. 
Once  they  had  come  here  only  to  look  upon  the 
geysers,  the  mud  caldrons  and  the  paint 
pots.  Now  the  sight  of  wild  things  in  their 
native  haunts  was  even  a  greater  curiosity 
than  the  freak  phenomena.  For  the  game 
was  gone  from  all  save  this  one  last  strong- 
hold. The  old  ranger  had  observed  that 
the  tourists  flocked  by  hundreds  to  watch 
the  bears  come  in  and  feed  upon  the  kitchen 
refuse  of  hotels  and  camps ;  strings  of  auto- 

£10 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD   WEST 

coaches  were  halted  while  the  drivers  pointed 
out  elk  or  deer  feeding  on  distant  hillsides. 
Tourists  were  conducted  to  beaver  dams 
along  the  streams  and  the  work  of  the  furred 
engineers,  once  numbering  at  least  ten  millions 
throughout  the  country,  was  now  deemed  of 
sufficient  oddity  to  be  listed  among  the 
attractions  along  with  the  petrified  forest 
and  the  boiling  mineral  springs. 

"But  folks  are  slow  in  learning,  Teton; 
mighty  slow,"  Woodson  said.  "It 's  hard 
to  make  'em  believe  they  own  the  Yellow- 
stone themselves.  Most  of  them  still  reason 
that  we  rangers  are  here  to  guard  the  Park 
against  them,  instead  of  guarding  it  for  them, 
which  last  is  the  true  facts  of  the  case.  In- 
stead of  thanking  us  for  looking  after  their 
interests,  the  bulk  of  them  sort  of  resent  the 
sight  of  a  ranger's  uniform." 

Frequently  he  had  experimented  along  this 
line  when  meeting  parties  of  tourists  in  the 
Park. 

"This  Park  is  yours,"  he  was  wont  to  say. 
"  Every  stick  and  stone,  every  lake  and  river 
in  all  the  Yellowstone  belongs  to  you.  Did 
you  ever  stop  to  figure  that  ?  " 

Few  of  them  had.  Many  smiled  at  this 
statement  and  deemed  it  but  an  exaggerated 
sense  of  courtesy  and  hospitality  on  the  part 
of  this  mild  old  man.  More  and  more  he 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD   WEST 

had  come  to  realize  how  restricted  is  the  life 
outlook  of  the  average  being.  Those  he  met 
could  not  grasp  the  fact  that  they  had  a 
definite  interest  in  this  great  common  property. 
For  man's  viewpoint  is  mainly  limited  to  the 
personal  equation,  and  he  counts  only  those 
things  his  possessions  of  which  he  can  acquire 
tangible  proof  of  belonging  to  him  individually. 
When  he  shares  a  corporate  interest  he  has  the 
certificate  that  specifically  denotes  the  exact 
degree  of  individual  proprietorship  to  show 
for  it.  His  interest  in  a  National  Park  is 
equally  real  but  less  apparent  to  his  under- 
standing. 

"I  wonder  now,  Teton,"  the  old  ranger 
said.  "I  wonder  if  we  'd  issue  every  citizen 
a  little  gold-and-green  certificate  stating  his 
ownership  to  be  pro  rata,  according  to  the 
population,  if  he  would  n't  set  up  nights 
studying  the  census  and  looking  into  immi- 
gration reports.  He  'd  have  something  then 
that  he  could  see  with  his  own  eyes.  But 
he  '11  never  believe  he  owns  any  of  this  till 
he  has  a  scrap  of  paper  to  prove  it  to  himself." 

Woodson  had  acquired  a  vast  patience. 
His  hair  had  been  bleached  by  the  rigors 
of  nearly  seventy  mountain  winters,  his 
drooping  mustache  held  in  dead-white  relief 
against  the  mahogany  background  of  a  face 
weathered  by  the  wind  and  sun  of  as  many 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

summers.  The  blue  eyes  peered  forth  un- 
dimmed  from  among  the  maze  of  sun  wrinkles 
at  their  corners.  He  had  lived  to  learn  that 
great  issues  are  not  effected  in  a  day.  But 
his  perseverance  had  borne  fruit  and  the 
things  he  had  always  sponsored  were  coming 
into  popular  favor  at  last.  Conservationists 
were  gaining  strength  and  numbers  and  the 
half-hearted  support  of  the  bulk  of  the  public. 
He  knew  that  conservation  would  eventually 
win  the  day.  It  was  but  a  question  of  time, 
—  and  of  how  much  of  anything  would  re- 
main to  be  conserved  after  the  day  was 
won.  It  had  narrowed  to  an  issue  between 
two  forces  and  the  fight  centered  round  the 
Yellowstone,  the  last  strip  of  country  left 
for  the  one  faction  to  exploit  and  develop, 
the  one  last  bit  of  the  great  outdoors  left  for 
the  opposing  party  to  preserve  in  a  state  of 
naturalness.  Men  had  always  deemed  it 
their  privilege  as  free  citizens  to  convert  any 
natural  resource  into  quick  profit  for  their 
individual  benefit,  regardless  of  the  trail  of 
waste  to  be  cleaned  up  at  ten  times  the  cost 
by  those  who  followed  in  their  wake ;  and  this 
belief  died  hard.  The  forces  of  overdevelop- 
ment surged  at  the  borders  of  the  Park  and 
sought  to  enter.  Cooke  City  worked  in- 
cessantly for  legislation  that  would  permit  a 
railroad  through  the  center  of  the  reserva- 

213 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

tion.  The  stock  interests  never  ceased  their 
striving  to  have  the  Yellowstone  thrown  open 
for  sheep  and  cows.  Idaho  pressed  her  de- 
mands that  a  portion  of  Falls  River  and  the 
Bechler  be  thrown  out  of  the  Park  and  ceded 
to  that  State.  Irrigationists  raised  the  hue 
and  cry  of  added  production  and  cheaper 
prices  to  further  their  plans  for  raising  all 
the  lakes  in  the  Park  for  storage  reservoirs. 
These  numerous  schemes  that  would  benefit 
a  few  local  communities  at  the  expense  of 
others  had  so  far  been  held  in  check. 

In  an  hour  Woodson  was  to  meet  a  com- 
mission at  the  Canyon,  a  party  of  conserva- 
tionists going  through  to  gather  facts  to 
help  fight  down  the  plans  to  raise  the  lakes. 
The  following  week  a  game  conservation 
committee  was  scheduled  to  come  in.  There 
were  many  of  these  now,  where  ten  years 
past  the  only  delegations  were  those  who 
sought  some  means  to  get  a  grip  on  the  re- 
sources of  the  Park. 

The  old  ranger  met  the  committee  at  the 
Canyon.  He  gave  them  facts  to  investigate 
as  they  proceeded,  details  they  would  have 
overlooked  if  not  warned  in  advance,  then 
volunteered  a  suggestion  of  his  own. 

"We  conservationists  will  have  to  change 
our  plea,"  he  said.  "We  've  been  going  at 
this  wrong  and  working  on  sentiment.  What 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

we  have  to  do  is  to  hang  out  the  dollar  sign : 
we  '11  have  an  audience  then.  It 's  the  only 
thing  our  people  thoroughly  understand. 
Quit  talking  to  them  about  beauty  and 
sentiment  and  speak  in  dimes  and  decimals 
instead.  Don't  bother  to  explain  that  raising 
Lake  Yellowstone  will  wreck  a  section  of  the 
Park  and  destroy  its  scenic  beauty;  will 
cover  fifty  square  miles  of  standing  timber 
and  make  a  horrible  mess  that  can't  be  cleaned 
up  in  a  hundred  years.  They  don't  give  a 
damn  about  all  that.  Tell  'em  this :  That 
tourists  spent  seven  million  dollars  in  this 
locality  this  year.  Tell  the  folks  out  to  the 
east,  round  Cody  way,  that  the  people  that 
left  a  million  dollars  of  tourist  money  out 
there  this  year  will  never  come  in  through 
the  East  Entrance  and  ride  past  miles  of 
dead  and  rotting  timber,  past  thousands  of 
acres  of  stewing,  stinking  mud-flats  that 
breed  billions  of  mosquitoes  and  insect  pests. 
Tell  the  folks  along  the  Snake  and  in  Jackson 
Hole  what  likely  they  don't  many  of  'em 
know  themselves :  that  last  year  the  dudes 
left  half  as  much  money  in  Jackson  Hole  as 
was  brought  into  it  from  the  sales  of  stock 
throughout  the  entire  valley.  Show  them 
that  if  they  raise  Yellowstone,  Shoshone 
and  Lewis  lakes  you  could  n't  pay  a  tourist 
to  make  the  trip  in  from  the  South  Entrance 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD   WEST 

on  a  bet.  Ask  them  if  an  extra  few  thou- 
sand acres  under  cultivation  way  off  in 
Montana  and  Idaho  is  going  to  replace  the 
silver  lining  of  their  pockets  after  the  dude 
money  quits  coming  in.  Then  they  '11  come 
to  life  and  quit  supporting  this  move.  Don't 
tell  'em  their  souls  are  dead  to  loveliness 
and  beauty:  they  don't  care.  Show  'em 
that  they  're  plain  fools  on  the  side  of  their 
pocketbooks  and  they  '11  come  up  fighting 
mad.  Then  they  '11  beat  this  thing  them- 
selves. Then  puncture  this  old  rally  cry  of 
'added  production'  that  always  gets  a  crowd. 
Go  into  any  valley  of  the  hills  and  point  out 
good  ranches  here  and  there  with  perfect 
water  rights,  ranches  that  have  n't  been 
farmed  for  years.  There 's  thousands  like 
that.  Then  tell  them  that  there  's  as  much 
idle  land  right  in  their  own  communities  as  the 
raising  of  the  lakes  will  irrigate  on  the  other 
side.  Tell  them  that  if  the  country  is  actually 
in  such  desperate  need  of  added  production 
the  wise  thing  to  do  is  to  get  the  idle  land  in 
their  own  localities  under  the  plow  and  reap 
the  benefits  themselves.  Talk  dollars  and 
dimes.  You  've  got  the  facts  to  back  you  up." 
Woodson's  knowledge  of  game  conditions 
had  been  acquired  throughout  a  lifetime  of 
actual  experience  and  recently  he  had 
gathered  financial  data  to  supplement  this 

216 


THE  PASSING    OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

information  against  the  time  when  the  game 
conservation  committee  should  arrive ;  for  he 
had  definitely  decided  that  none  but  financial 
appeals  would  gain  his  end.  As  he  waited 
at  the  Yellowstone  Entance  with  a  pack 
outfit  to  conduct  the  party  through  the  game 
fields  he  reviewed  the  facts  in  his  mind. 

"Doctor  Ainslee  is  a  big  man  in  his  field, 
Teton,"  Woodson  said.  "He's  represent- 
ing the  two  largest  wild-life  societies  alive. 
I  wonder  if  we  '11  be  able  to  make  him  see 
things  from  our  angle." 

He  met  the  party  and  for  three  days  they 
wound  across  the  southern  extremity  of  the 
Madison  Plateau,  over  the  Continental  Divide, 
then  traversed  the  table-lands  of  the  Pitch- 
stone. 

Woodson  pointed  to  far  bottoms  spread  out 
in  the  southwest  corner  of  the  reservation, 
showing  green  below  them. 

"There  "s  hay  to  winter-feed  ten  thousand 
or  more  head  of  elk,"  he  said,  "if  only  it 
could  be  cut." 

"But  where  are  the  elk?"  Doctor  Ainslee 
demanded.  They  had  covered  thirty  miles 
and  had  seen  but  a  single  bull.  There  were 
no  tracks  in  the  hills.  "I  thought  you  were 
going  to  show  us  elk." 

"I  will,"  Old  Mart  assured  him.  "But 
first  I  wanted  to  show  you  this." 

217 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

They  moved  south  and  east  to  the  station 
on  the  Snake  and  from  there  crossed  the  Big 
Game  Ridge  and  the  heights  of  Two  Ocean 
Plateau.  Here,  in  two  days,  they  saw  thou- 
sands of  elk  on  the  summer  range.  Off 
southwest  the  serrated  teeth  of  the  Grand 
Tetons  stood  guard  over  Jackson  Hole. 

"Jackson  Hole,"  Ainslee  commented. 
"The  slaughter  pen  of  the  last  elk  herds." 

"Listen,"  Woodson  urged.  He  laid  one 
hand  on  the  doctor's  shoulder  and  with  the 
other  pointed  off  in  the  direction  from  which 
they  had  come.  "Do  you  know  why  I 
took  you  all  through  there  and  let  you  fret 
because  you  could  n't  find  even  an  elk  track 
when  you  'd  come  all  this  distance  to  see 
game?" 

"  No,"  the  doctor  confessed.     "  Just  why  ?  " 

"Because  five  years  ago  there  was  some 
twenty  thousand  head  ranging  the  Pitch- 
stone  and  the  Madison  plateaus." 

"Where  are  they  now?"  Ainslee  asked. 

"The  Idaho  meat-hunters  wiped  them  out 
to  the  last  hoof,"  Old  Mart  stated.  "There 
was  so  much  thunder  leveled  at  Jackson 
Hole  that  you  did  n't  observe  the  western 
herd  being  exterminated  to  a  point  where 
right  now  an  elk  is  as  rare  as  a  camel  all  along 
the  Idaho  side  of  the  Park.  The  northern 
herd  is  getting  the  same  medicine  now, 

£18 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

The  Montana  law  allows  shooting  up  till 
Christmas  right  outside  the  line." 

"But  that  late  season  is  to  prevent  meat 
being  killed  while  the  weather  is  warm  and 
left  to  spoil,"  Ainslee  explained.  "It 's  really 
framed  to  conserve  the  meat." 

"Is  it?"  Woodson  asked.  "It's  really 
framed  to  exterminate  the  elk.  Wyoming 
has  set  aside  more  than  a  thousand  square 
miles  of  game  preserves  that  block  in  two 
sides  of  the  Park.  She  has  the  least  popula- 
tion of  any  State  save  one,  yet  she  makes  an 
annual  appropriation  to  winter-feed  her  game. 
Thousands  of  elk  live  for  eight  months  on 
WTyoming  grass,  get  rolling  fat  —  and  cross 
out  into  Montana  to  try  and  winter  through 
for  the  other  four.  Do  they  find  any  grass 
out  there  ?  It  's  sheeped  as  bare  as  a  gravel 
bar  right  over  the  boundary.  Is  there  any 
hay  furnished  for  the  starving  ?  Not  a  pound  ! 
Is  there  even  a  refuge  where  men  can't  shoot 
them  down  ?  There  's  thousands  of  hunters 
waiting  just  over  the  line  on  Crevice  and 
Hell-roaring  creeks,  the  two  big  migration 
highways,  to  pick  out  two  elk  apiece  that  have 
been  raised  on  Wyoming  feed  —  while  the 
residents  of  the  other  State  are  only  allowed 
one.  And  they  leave  the  season  open  till 
Christmas  to  make  sure  the  elk  can't  stay 
back  in  the  hills  and  have  a  chance.  They 

219 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

don't  even  want  to  get  out  and  hunt,  but 
just  wait  till  their  meat  comes  to  them, 
meat  raised  at  the  expense  of  a  sister  State, 
and  slaughter  them  like  butchering  tame 
sheep.  And  while  they  're  doing  that,  the 
ranchers  of  Jackson  Hole  are  sleeping  every 
winter  in  their  stacks,  scores  of  them  all 
down  the  line.  The  Government  made  a 
good  start  down  there  a  few  years  back  and 
installed  a  hay  ranch  for  a  winter  feed- 
ground.  It  was  hoped  they  'd  increase  the 
layout  and  maybe  put  in  another  to  handle 
all  the  elk  and  take  the  burden  off  the  settlers. 
But  they  have  n't  up  to  date.  They  're  still 
sleeping  in  their  stacks.  There 's  a  pile 
of  killing  goes  on  there  for  a  fact  but  the  only 
marvel  is  that  there  is  n't  a  whole  lot  more. 
When  a  man  winters  a  bunch  of  elk  through 
with  his  cows  at  his  own  expense,  like  some 
of  them  actually  do,  and  he  sees  them  starve 
by  the  score,  why  it 's  downright  hard  to 
convince  that  man  where  he 's  wrong  in 
killing  one  for  himself  when  he  's  needing 
meat.  You  conservationists  have  got  to 
swap  ends.  What  is  needed  is  to  give  Jack- 
son Hole  some  help  and  give  that  Gardiner 
outfit  hell !  I  'm  telling  you." 

For  a  month  he  led  the  party  through  the 
summer  range  of  the  elk  herds.  They  visited 
Buffalo  Fork  and  followed  the  Blackrock  to 

220 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Two-Gow-Tee  Pass  and  looked  down  upon 
the  head  of  Wind  River,  tarried  for  a  week  on 
the  head  reaches  of  the  Yellowstone,  then 
ascended  the  Thorofare  and  crossed  through 
Rampart  Pass  to  the  Elk  Fork  of  the  Sho- 
shone.  He  ended  the  trip  by  escorting  them 
through  the  grass  lands  of  Slough  Creek  and 
Lamar. 

"A  big  percentage  of  the  elk  that  summers 
back  where  we  've  been  rambling  come  down 
this  way  with  the  heavy  snows,"  Old  Mart 
explained.  "We  've  cut  some  hay  on  Yancy 
Meadows  and  Lamar;  enough  to  prove  our 
point  —  that  the  elk  will  stop  and  winter 
right  here  inside  the  Park.  We  're  furnished 
some  hay  each  year  now  to  feed  on  the  Gar- 
diner Flat.  But  we  '11  have  to  cut  hay  up 
here  and  hold  bunches  all  along.  It 's  hard 
to  get  appropriations  though.  They  orate 
and  dally  and  delay.  Procrastination  killed 
the  Yellowstone  herds  of  buffalo ;  and  a  few 
years  back  the  antelope  herds  were  lost 
through  negligence.  Every  one  was  sorry 
after  it  was  just  too  late.  They  always  are." 

As  the  party  bade  him  good-by  in  Mam- 
moth, Doctor  Ainslee  asked  if  there  were 
any  additional  points  which  might  be  used  as 
levers  to  gain  their  ends. 

"Just  one;  the  only  one  that  will  really 
count,"  Old  Mart  stated.  "The  conserva- 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

tionists  have  confined  themselves  to  the  appeal 
of  sentiment.  They  tell  how  the  bison  are 
swept  from  the  plains  and  the  dodo  is  no  more. 
Folks  can't  seem  to  feel  upset  over  the 
shortage  of  dodoes  to  pose  as  targets.  Trade 
the  dodo  for  the  dollar  and  show  them  where 
the  elk  and  other  game  that 's  left  are  worth 
real  money.  Then  you  '11  get  a  crowd.  The 
game  has  always  given  way  to  domestic 
stock.  Prove  that  up  here  in  the  last  few 
pockets  of  the  hills  the  elk  are  worth  more 
to  a  community  than  the  cows  that  could  be 
run  on  that  same  feed.  Right  away  they  '11 
start  to  listen  where  they  'd  go  to  sleep  if 
you  started  holding  another  service  over  the 
dear  departed  dodo." 

"But  that 's  the  very  point  we  're  trying 
to  avoid,"  Doctor  Ainlsee  explained.  "They 
advance  the  argument  that  a  given  amount 
of  feed  will  produce  so  much  meat  and  that 
the  cows  that  could  be  grazed  on  the  little  feed 
reserved  for  elk  will  add  that  much  produc- 
tion and  bring  money  into  the  country ;  that 
the  Government  would  derive  revenue  from 
grazing  permits.  We  can't  refute  these  facts." 

"But  you  can  explode  those  fallacies," 
Old  Mart  returned.  "In  a  big  range  country, 
or  even  here  in  the  hills  a  few  years  back, 
those  arguments  were  true.  But  up  here 
to-day  that  meat  and  revenue  theory  is  a 

222 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

pose.  I  '11  give  you  an  example  of  one  spot 
you  've  been  in  yourself.  The  Elk  Fork 
is  about  the  only  creek  out  of  forty  flowing 
into  the  Shoshone  that  is  closed  to  grazing 
—  the  one  little  winter  feed-ground  for  the 
eastern  herd  of  elk.  Before  it  was  closed 
Art  Hinman  run  cows  up  there.  Three 
hundred-odd  head  ate  it  out  in  five  months 
every  summer.  Those  who  want  it  open 
now  claim  it  will  support  more  —  but  it 
won't.  But  there  was  eighteen  hundred  elk 
wintered  there  last  season.  They  summer  in 
the  peaks  on  grass  the  cows  never  reach  and 
only  touch  the  bottom  feed  when  a  heavy  soft 
snow  is  on.  Then  they  come  down.  As 
soon  as  the  wind  blows  the  ridges  bare  they 
go  back  till  the  next  storm  hits.  There  's 
your  *  pound-of -meat-on-so-much-feed '  fal- 
lacy as  compared  to  elk  and  cows,  in  the  hills 
to-day.  Even  providing  that  the  creek  would 
support  five  hundred  cows  for  six  months  in  the 
year — which  it  won't — the  Government  would 
take  in  possibly  a  hundred  dollars  in  grazing 
fees  at  twenty  cents  a  head.  What  it  actually 
did  take  in  last  year  was  over  four  thousand 
dollars  in  non-resident  licenses  issued  to 
outside  sportsmen  who  hunted  adjacent  coun- 
try. There 's  your  revenue !  And  the 
license  money  goes  to  their  own  State  while 
the  grazing  fees  on  the  Forest  would  go  to 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

Federal  sources.  There  were  nineteen  guides 
outfitted  on  the  Shoshone  and  took  in  forty- 
three  thousand  dollars  from  non-resident 
hunters  —  besides  what  money  they  spent 
in  the  towns.  Can  your  little  bunch  of 
cows  equal  that?  Then  on  top  of  it  all, 
just  for  good  measure,  the  people  of  the  com- 
munity killed  four  hundred  elk  last  year 
out  of  the  increase  from  that  bunch  —  four 
hundred  big  animals  for  free  meat !  The 
same  thing  is  true  in  other  localities.  Don't 
tell  the  folks  of  Jackson  Hole  it 's  wrong  to 
kill  off  their  elk.  Show  them  where  it 's 
profit  in  their  pockets  to  let  them  live  and 
take  the  outside  hunter's  money.  Tell  them 
that  other  States  where  the  game  is  almost 
gone  have  discovered  that  it 's  profitable 
even  to  buy  live  game  to  restock;  that  the 
revenues  from  resident  licenses  run  well 
over  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  annually 
in  some  States  where  there  's  nothing  much 
left  but  crows  and  cottontails ;  that  Pennsyl- 
vania is  buying  live  rabbits  by  the  tens  of 
thousands  to  restock.  Show  them  what  rank 
folly  it  is  to  waste  their  game  out  here.  Edu- 
cate them  up  to  see  that  true  development  to- 
day lies  in  conservation,  that  overdevelopment 
is  waste.  Feed  them  financial  facts  instead 
of  sentiment.  Swap  the  dodo  for  the  dollar 
and  prove  your  point.  Then  you  '11  win." 


XIV 

THE  cook  fires  of  two  hundred  hunting 
camps  spread  their  thin  film  of  smoke  above 
the  northern  boundary  of  the  Yellowstone. 
On  one  side  half  a  dozen  rangers  guarded  the 
Park  along  the  crest  of  Crevice  Mountain. 
Across  from  them  a  thousand  hunters  waited 
just  outside  the  line. 

Two  horsemen  topped  a  ridge  and  pulled 
up  to  view  the  scene  spread  out  below  them. 
It  was  the  winter  of  the  big  snows.  Heavy 
storms  had  followed  in  swift  succession  and 
spread  their  white  layers  over  all  the  hills. 
Across  from  the  two  men  a  band  of  forty 
mule  deer  climbed  the  shoulder  of  a  ridge. 
Below  them  a  few  antelope  traveled  the 
Turkeypen  Trail,  headed  for  the  feed-ground 
on  the  Gardiner  Flat.  A  dozen  bighorn 
sheep  showed  as  tiny  specks  on  a  point  of 
Mount  Everts.  The  younger  man  pointed  to 
the  rolling  country  far  up  the  bottoms  of 
Blacktail  Deer  Creek.  A  fresh  drift  of  elk 
moved  toward  them  from  the  south,  some 
traveling  in  big  droves,  others  in  straggling 
groups.  The  foremost  ranks  of  the  drift 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

fanned  out  and  angled  up  the  south  slope  of 
Crevice.  Some  turned  off  on  the  Turkey- 
pen  Trail.  Everywhere  they  trained  their 
eyes  there  were  elk  in  plenty. 

As  they  sat  their  horses  and  watched  this 
spectacle  the  young  man  unfolded  his  great 
dream  while  Old  Mart  listened.  He  would 
take  this  land  of  the  Yellowstone  and  pre- 
serve it  for  a  vast  playground  for  future 
generations  so  that  they  might  come  here  and 
see  what  the  great  outdoors  had  been  in  a 
day  before  their  time.  Those  who  would 
reconstruct  the  mighty  day  of  the  fur  trade 
could  come  and  find  marten  on  the  pifion 
ridges,  foxes  traveling  the  high  divides,  mink 
and  otter  following  the  streams  where  the 
beaver  built  his  dams.  For  those  who  might 
wish  to  see  a  touch  of  the  great  westward 
trek  across  the  plains  there  were  more  than 
three  hundred  antelope  still  ranging  the 
beautiful  bottoms  of  the  Lamar  and  the  buffalo 
herd  had  increased  to  more  than  four  hundred 
head.  There  were  rare  bighorn  sheep  in  the 
peaks  and  deer  in  the  lodgepole  valleys. 
Here  were  black  and  browrn  bears  in  scores 
and  some  few  of  the  monster  grizzlies,  so 
nearly  extinct  within  the  borders  of  the 
nation.  There  were  moose  in  the  swampy 
bottoms  and  all  about  them  were  hordes  of 
elk,  nearly  thirty  thousand  ranging  in  the 

226 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD   WEST 

Park;  a  hundred  placid  lakes  and  frothing 
cataracts,  scores  of  crystal  creeks  and  rivers ; 
forests  unscarred  by  the  lumberman's  ax ; 
meadows  where  only  wild  things  grazed; 
the  sounds  only  those  of  the  hills  and  rivers, 
Nature's  own,  never  to  be  shattered  by  the 
rasp  of  sawmill  or  the  miner's  blast.  All 
this  must  be  preserved  in  its  naturalness. 
What  nobler  monument  could  be  bequeathed 
to  future  Americans  than  this  one  spot 
where  they  might  come  and  with  their  own 
eyes  look  upon  a  miniature  of  the  greatest 
day  of  their  country's  early  history,  one  last 
bit  of  the  Great  West  left  intact  ? 

As  Old  Mart  listened  it  seemed  but  an 
echo  of  his  own  words  of  almost  a  half- 
century  before  cast  back  to  him  out  of  the 
past.  The  younger  man  planned  now  as 
Old  Mart  had  planned  when  he  himself 
was  young.  He  devoted  the  same  driving 
energy  and  sincere  purpose  to  the  work 
that  Woodson  had  given  it  in  the  years  gone 

by. 

The  keen  bark  of  smokeless  powder  sounded 
from  up  the  slope  as  some  meat-hunter  made 
the  first  shot  of  the  kill.  Four  hundred 
head  of  elk  had  milled  across  the  line.  A 
string  of  six  shots  followed  the  first.  Then 
hell  broke  loose  in  Crevice  Mountain.  Every 
man  in  sight  opened  fire.  Those  on  far 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

shoulders  emptied  their  guns  at  long  range 
as  droves  of  elk  climbed  sidehills  or  crossed 
through  open  parks.  From  a  scattered  volley 
the  sound  whipped  into  a  steady  roar  as  two 
hundred  men  with  magazine  guns  went  into 
action  at  once.  The  elk  plunged  through 
the  heavy  drifts  and  crossed  between  the 
hunters.  Other  bands  followed  in  their  wake 
and  ran  the  gantlet  of  the  guns.  The  whole 
side  of  the  mountain  was  streaked  with 
stampeding  elk.  Some  wavered  and  turned 
back  inside  the  Park  but  the  general  drift 
was  up  the  slope.  The  animals  could  move 
but  slowly  as  they  bucked  the  snow-banks  and 
climbed  the  steep  ascent.  It  was  easy  meat 
for  the  hunters.  For  ten  minutes  the  starving 
horde  streamed  past  without  a  break.  The 
steady,  rolling  volume  of  firing  died  away  in  a 
crackle  of  scattering  shots. 

Old  Mart  looked  up  over  the  course  of  the 
run.  Three  hundred  dead  elk  lay  sprawled 
in  the  snow.  Half  as  many  wounded  moved 
among  the  carcasses  of  the  slain,  the  result 
of  bunch-shooting  by  inexperienced  hunters 
who  had  not  the  ability  to  pick  their  animal 
and  make  a  clean  kill  but  instead  emptied 
their  guns  into  the  thickest  of  every  drove 
that  crossed  the  line,  wounding  twice  as  many 
as  they  killed.  A  score  of  these  crippled 
ones  gained  the  Park  line  and  temporary 

228 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

safety.  Some  had  bedded  in  the  snow,  too 
weak  to  rise,  while  others  stood  with  droop- 
ing heads,  legs  spraddled  wide  apart  to  sup- 
port their  sagging  weight.  All  along  the  face 
of  Crevice  men  were  dressing  out  their  meat. 
Then  they  raised  from  their  work  to  listen 
as  a  volley  of  shots,  far  and  faint,  drifted 
across  the  hills  to  the  eastward,  coming  at 
first  in  ragged  strings  ripped  from  automatics, 
then  increasing  to  a  steady  roll.  Another 
drift  of  elk  had  crossed  out  by  way  of  Hell- 
roaring  Creek  and  run  the  gantlet  of  a 
hundred  hunters  waiting  just  outside  the 
line.  As  this  shooting  died  away,  another 
outburst  sounded  from  far  off  to  the  west 
as  the  survivors  of  the  massacre  on  Crevice 
poured  along  the  roads  and  open  sidehills 
back  of  Gardiner.  For  almost  two  months 
this  had  been  going  on  the  length  of  the 
northern  boundary  of  the  Yellowstone  from 
Gardiner  to  Cooke  City.  Day  after  day  bad 
news  had  reached  Old  Mart  from  other  parts. 
The  Sylvan  Pass  Ranger  Station  had  sent 
in  the  tidings  that  the  eastern  herd  was 
gone.  One  last  heavy  storm  had  crowded 
the  animals  out  and  they  followed  down 
the  Shoshone  to  be  shot  down  in  hundreds 
on  the  road.  The  Jones  Creek  herd  on  the 
far  slope  of  the  Absarokas  had  been  wiped 
out  to  the  last  head.  Down  in  Jackson  Hole 
229 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE   OLD  WEST 

they  had  made  the  biggest  kill  in  years. 
The  little  Swan  Lake  herd,  numbering  some 
five  hundred  head,  had  circled  out  round 
Electric  Peak,  crossed  into  Montana  and  had 
been  exterminated  in  a  single  day. 

Old  Mart  was  gaunt  and  hollow-eyed 
from  sustained  exertions.  Day  and  night 
he  had  been  out  patrolling  the  lines  in  the 
heavy  storms.  This  was  the  last  day  of  the 
season.  The  slaughter  would  soon  cease. 
He  headed  Teton  down  toward  the  Gardiner 
Flat  where  a  big  band  of  elk  was  being  guarded 
and  wintered  through  on  hay.  The  young 
man  was  responsible  for  the  survival  of  this 
one  drove  of  the  northern  herds.  His  year's 
salary  had  furnished  the  feed  to  hold  the  elk 
there  while  he  urged  the  necessity  of  imme- 
diate appropriations  to  buy  hay.  And 
through  his  energetic  presentation  of  the 
matter  the  funds  to  winter  this  bunch  through 
had  been  granted.  Woodson  rode  down  into 
the  flat  and  crossed  out  into  the  town  of 
Gardiner.  The  packed  snow  on  the  main 
street  showed  red  from  the  bloody  splashes 
dripping  from  the  trucks  and  wagons,  piled 
high  with  butchered  elk,  that  filed  through 
town  to  the  railroad.  Along  the  platform 
of  the  station  the  carcasses  were  stacked  in 
hundreds,  waiting  shipment.  Old  Mart  esti- 
mated that  no  less  than  ten  thousand  head 

23Q 


THE  PASSING   OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

of  elk  had  been  shot  down  in  the  recent 
slaughter  on  the  Gardiner  side.  The  railroad 
shipped  out  four  thousand  carcasses  during 
the  open  season.  As  many  more  had  been 
hauled  away  in  sleds  and  wagons.  He  knew 
that  some  twelve  hundred  wounded  animals 
had  crossed  back  over  the  Park  line  and  died. 

As  he  rode  back  across  the  flat  a  band  of 
thirty  mule  deer,  going  down,  filed  past  him. 
For  three  years  these  deer  had  wintered  on 
the  lawns  of  Mammoth  and  no  less  than  a 
hundred  times  he  had  watched  them  crowd- 
ing round  the  doors  of  the  houses  to  take 
sugar  and  crusts  of  bread  from  the  hands 
of  the  ladies  living  at  headquarters. 

They  had  no  fear  of  man,  these  hand-fed 
deer,  and  the  little  band  started  through  the 
big  stone  entrance  arch  to  investigate  the 
town  of  Gardiner,  confident  of  the  same  wel- 
come reception  that  was  accorded  them  each 
day  in  Mammoth.  Woodson  turned  in  his 
saddle  at  the  sound  of  a  pair  of  keen  reports 
behind  him.  A  hunter  in  the  streets  of 
Gardiner  had  watched  the  approach  of  the 
little  band  and  shot  down  the  big  buck  in  the 
lead  the  instant  he  cleared  the  arch.  The 
rest  had  crowded  back  and  now  stood  in  a 
huddled  group  just  inside  the  line.  This 
was  no  unusual  occurrence,  Old  Mart  re- 
flected, this  killing  of  game  right  in  the 

231 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

streets  of    Gardiner,  —  only  slight   incidents 
in  the  annual  carnival  of  slaughter. 

Woodson  pulled  up  his  horse  and  waited 
for  the  young  man,  now  his  chief,  to  ride 
across  the  flat  and  join  him.  As  they  sat 
and  watched  the  sun  drop  behind  the  peaks 
Woodson  knew  that  he  was  but  a  clinging 
relic  of  a  period  that  had  passed.  In  his  own 
lifetime  he  had  seen  three  fifths  of  the  best 
timber  cut  with  lavish  hand  and  forestry 
statistics  showed  that  the  rest  was  being 
logged  each  year  at  a  rate  of  four  times  that 
grown  in  reforestation  areas  to  replace  it. 
He  had  read  engineers'  estimates  reporting 
that  only  one  heat  unit  out  of  every  ten  was 
conserved  and  utilized  out  of  the  coal  that  was 
burned,  for  the  reason  that  the  trend  of 
development  was  toward  methods  of  getting 
more  coal  out  of  the  ground  rather  than 
toward  perfecting  methods  for  less  wasteful 
burning.  He  had  seen  millions  of  acres  of 
hill-country  range  partially  ruined  by  over- 
grazing and  the  poison  loco,  camas  and  the 
larkspur  sprouting  thicker  as  the  grass  thinned 
out;  the  wild  life  of  a  continent  had  been 
wiped  out  in  his  own  lifetime.  He  had 
heard  the  spring  song  of  the  West  when  it 
was  young,  and  in  the  ragged  spurts  of  shoot- 
ing up  on  Crevice  Mountain  he  listened 
now  to  the  final  notes  of  its  swan  song.  As  he 


THE  PASSING   OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

reviewed  the  transitions  he  had  witnessed 
in  his  day,  he  wondered  what  the  young  man 
beside  him  would  live  to  see  in  his,  and  he 
feared  that  another  dream  would  be  fore- 
doomed to  trickle  out  at  last  in  blank  failure 
as  had  his  own. 

Teton  was  very  old  and  he  stood  now  with 
drooping  head.  An  ancient  buffalo  bull  had 
left  the  herd  on  the  Lamar  and  drifted  down 
to  the  flat.  A  buck  antelope  fed  near  the 
bison  as  if  aware  that  they  were  kindred 
spirits.  The  largest  bull  elk  on  the  feed- 
ground  stood  apart  from  the  rest.  His  knees 
were  sprung  and  the  weight  of  his  massive 
antlers  bowed  his  head.  For  a  week  he  had 
stood  almost  in  that  same  spot.  Woodson 
knew  what  that  sprung-kneed,  toed-out  atti- 
tude presaged.  He  had  seen  other  old  bulls 
draw  away  from  the  bands  to  die.  A  big- 
horn ram  had  come  far  down  the  shoulder  of 
an  adjacent  ridge. 

"Here  we  are,  Teton,"  Old  Mart  said. 
"All  the  old  he-ones  of  yesterday  gathered 
for  a  final  rally.  It 's  sunset  for  us  old- 
timers.  We  're  just  a  whisper  of  the  past, 
fossils  of  the  old  days  that  are  gone." 

He  faced  to  the  West  and  gazed  for  long 
as  if  the  sunset  held  a  vision  for  his  eyes 
alone  to  read.  A  black  cloud  had  flung  its 
banners  from  beyond  the  range.  All  on  the 

233 


THE  PASSING  OF  THE  OLD  WEST 

near  side  had  faded  and  its  shadow  blotted 
the  last  bit  of  absolute  naturalness  left  in  all 
the  hills.  The  jagged  peaks  took  on  instead 
a  semblance  of  gaunt  and  crumbling  ruins. 
The  black  cloud  twisted  into  the  form  of  a 
giant  letter  "S."  The  last  rays  of  the  sun 
shot  two  golden  bars  up  through  it. 

"It 's  time  to  kneel  and  say  our  prayers, 
Teton,"  Old  Mart  said.  "We've  followed 
the  weak  gods  all  our  lives.  Now  we  're 
given  one  last  chance  to  bow  before  the 
strong.  There  's  the  banner  of  the  winning 
Deity  out  there.  We  've  just  time  to  pay 
our  first  respects  to  it  before  it  fades." 

For  in  the  sunset  Old  Mart  had  seen  the 
symbol  of  the  Mad  God,  —  Overdevelop- 
ment. 


THE  END 


234 


V37V  P3 
Jt'ZI 


